The Mellotones
Live! at the Seahorse (independent)
New Year's Eve 2015 with The Mellotones and DJ Savory
Wednesday, December 31 at 8:30pm
Olympic Community Hall, 2304 Hunter Street
$40
A suitable keepsake for The Seahorse Tavern as it leaves its Argyle Street location after 66 years is the band that has made that downstairs hum soulfully for a decade. A nine-piece with fluid keyboards, roaring horns and versatile guitars, The Mellotones radiate energy while staying faithful to the originals, which they choose well. Two singers enable a smooth shift from James Brown mania to Al Green tenderness. Bobby Bland's "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" is a savvy choice since younger ears know it via a sample used by Jay-Z. "Let a Woman Be a Woman, Let a Man Be a Man" by Dyke and the Blazers has likely never been heard on local radio, but is a provocative command on the dance-floor 45 years after its' origin. Little Milton's "Grits Ain't Groceries" is another selection you may be hearing for the first time. The horns charts sound a bit crisper on the one studio recording, "Soulful Proclamation," a 1970 obscurity from Messengers. The hottest live band in Nova Scotia during the era of this music was The Lincolns. That they played mostly covers was no hindrance to their status, nor should it be for The Mellotones.