You either love actor/musician Billy Bob Thornton or hate him. There is no in-between. My favorite Billy Bob movies are Bad Santa and Sling Blade. Then again, I can't stand him in other roles.
Billy Bib brought his rock n' roll band, The Boxmasters, to the Sellersville Theater on Sunday night. The place was packed ( in fact, they over-booked, with people standing on the sides and aisles.
Predictably, the crowd was middle-aged to seniors. Not really, really old ( 80s and 90s) yet few too.
The Boxmasters are on a 40 concert tour in 45 days, according to Thornton, who was chatty through out the two-hour show. Billy Bob was typical, talking about smoking, drinking and all the other iconic Billy Bob "hobbies." What you get in a movie like Bad Santa seems to be the real Billy Bob.
The music is Southern California, garage-band power pop. True, most of the songs may sound alike, but it's good stuff. It's not memorable stuff that you might be humming far after the show, but it's pleasant enough for two hours.
Most of the crowd wanted to dance or get excited, and toward the end of the show, when Billy Bob asked the people to stand, they did start to clap and move around. But I kept thinking that the experience between band and fans come be so much better. The problem is...Billy Bob himself.
He is so "whatever" in his attitude, so low-key, after singing a few licks he turns his back to the audience to swig Coke, that instead of encouraging the crowd to go wild, at time she seems like he is just mailing it in.
It was weird that two times during the show, during extended guitar riffs, Billy Bob left the stage to get a smoke. We were at a table near the stage and we could smell the cigarette smoke all the way past the second row.
Anyway, the music is catchy but I did wish The Boxmasters, with their guitar-driven force, would've done a few covers, maybe a little Beatles, maybe some fellow power pop like the Knack?
Still, it was a fun night and the crowd warmed up to Billy Bob and his group as they received a few standing ovations
The opening act was a duo who called themselves "Dominni." The two guys looked like brothers from South Philly, utilizing an acoustic guitar and keyboard. They had some fine moments, like when you two twenty-something guys covered The Ink Spots, but at times they sounded like a bad karaoke band.
** stars of four
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