Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves – 3/18/09 @ SXSW

Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves

As good as Brazil’s make-upped hard rock band Oxe were, it would be a bit overly ambitious to be spending the entire Wednesday night out. At 12:30 I started to make my way back up the hill to Full Service’s house. Try riding up the hill south on Congress after a full day of SXSW. 15 minutes of intense heart pounding I was looking for any excuse to take a break. It came in the form of a sweet classic soul R&B blasting out of the Continental Club.

It stopped me from across the street, and after a minute of making sure my ears weren’t deceiving me, I j-walked over to check out who was making those sweet, sweet, sweet sounds.

Eli Paperboy Reed and The True Loves are LEGIT. True classic soul, rich as gumbo, intoxicating as dehydration and red wine. Had the band been born four decades earlier they would have ruled the charts and been the crown jewel of Stax, Checkers or Motown.

Their set (or the tail end of it that I caught) was just the pick me up that I needed. The next 20 minutes of uphill-pumping melted away to the soundtrack of sweat, love and emotion. Super duper, mang.

Tags: 15 minutes, amp, brazil, Checkers, Congress, continental club, crown jewel, dehydration, ears, Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves - 3/18/09 @ SXSW, emotion, excuse, four decades, hard rock band, heart, paperboy, red wine, reed, sweat, sweet sounds, wednesday night