Peter Holsapple & The Well Respected Men

This weekend, I found myself at local club to see a friend perform. Time spent at The Kracken would prove to be a new experience in more than one way. Firstly, I got a chance to see a friend play at Chapel Hill’s rock ‘n’ roll roadhouse (per their marketing materials). The icing on the cake was that he’d be opening for Peter Holsapple & The Well Respected Men.

Here’s some video I shot of The Well Respected Men performing “Father Christmas”. Consider it my Christmas card to you.

These guys have to be the finest Kinks “cover band” in existence (considering the pedigree of the players involved, it feels strange to refer to them as a cover band). They practically blew the roof off of the place with spot-on, power poppin’ covers of the Davies brother’s finest material. This was, however, billed as a Christmas show (sort of). They covered The Kinks from the beginning to the end, from “All Of The Day And All Of The Night” to “Go Dancing”. They played “Lola”, “David Watts”, and “Victoria” with such precision and energy that it brought back memories a Kinks show I’d seen back in the day.

While Holsapple played the part of Ray with great success, it seems nearly every band members can sing. And every last one was a crackerjack musician. They had the crowd jumpin’. Some were dancing with reckless abandon. Hats off to the quirky dancin’ guy dressed like Brian Ferry . This guy takes his fun seriously.

The Well Respected Men are: Jefferson Hart, Peter Holsapple, Glenn Jones, Jody Maxwell and Andrew Snee. You can see and hear more about the guys by visiting their Facebook page.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Derrick Kirkman. Derrick opened with a short set of songs, some covers and others originals. More importantly, there’s a kind of warmth to his delivery and every song was entirely engaging. You can find out more about Derrick HERE.

Jeff Wall followed with a short set of R-rated, tunes. His songs were clever, to say the least. Wall added a well received element of humor to the proceedings.