Duke Robillard

I’m with Duke Robillard: Putting blues in big halls is the wrong way to go. Sure, more people can check it out, but the over-all experience is diffused. To see this genre in its best light, you need a small club with a good sound system where the music (and the musicians) can get right in your face. The Van Dyck’s upstairs concert space fits that description like a glove. So when Robillard returned to the Electric City’s Stockade neighborhood, I had to be there.

And I wasn’t the only one: The 7 o’clock show was a total sell-out, and Van Dyck staff was packing General Admission customers into the bar at the back of the club when I took my seat for the late set. It was so busy, I didn’t even see the star of the show walk past me, smiling and exchanging words with well-wishers in the crowd. Robillard was all in black from his Homburg to his shoes as he stepped onstage without ceremony; Duke’s longtime backup band joined him one by one as he sat on a high bar stool and tuned one of his array of guitars, taking an occasional sip of red wine while the crowd continued its own conversations.

The scene probably sounds far too casual, given Robillard’s legendary status, but it actually speaks to how much of a fixture Duke has become at the Van Dyck. He’s a regular now, and we’re happy to have him. And when soundman/emcee Ace Parkhurst announced the band, rest assured that the crowd made a seriously appropriate noise. “The resident ghost is in the house,” Robillard told us, throwing a friendly grin at the SRO space up in the rafters. “So we’re gonna play something for her!” With that, Robillard counted his band into “Stoned” from his 2007 disc World Full of Blues.

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