Who knew that there was some soul in the back streets of Sutton? Judging by the 200 people who turned out to see Popa Chubby on Friday night, I would say there was.
When some pensioner friends of mine invited me to the Boom Boom Club to celebrate the birthday of a mutual friend who couldn’t make it, I figured, why not?
To say I was giddy with excitement might be overstating it, but I was quite chipper as I left the house; looking forward to: a) being out of it (the house) and b) seeing some live music for the first time in 4 years.
Despite her advancing years, my very good friend Sue is as hip and fearless as what the imagined daughter of Jessie J and Evel Knievel might be. ‘He’s brilliant…a big fat guy from the Bronx’, she said about Popa Chubby; before ensuring that I understood the origins of his name, “Popa Chubby…you know, ‘Pop a Chubby,’ as in get an erection’
As I sat with pint number 2 in hand, waiting for this big bad erection of a man to ejaculate onto the stage, a young girl to my left leaned across and said;
‘I’ve never been to a gig with so many old people’
‘Oh, they’re all with you are they?’ I joked.
She didn’t laugh and before I had a chance to prove to her that I was funny, Popa appeared. He was what a medical professional out of earshot might term ‘morbidly obese’: indeed his official website invites you to enter ‘Chubbyland’.
Opening with a jawdroppingly great rendition of ‘Hey Joe,’ before moving on to some of his own darkly humourous and soulful songs, it soon became apparent that Popa’s great size was vanquished only by his talent. His powerful and beautifully controlled voice told me it was a different muscle of which this man was all about. And, chubby as they were, his fingers danced across the strings of his guitar like a set of very capable raw sausages.
At the end of the night, I was introduced to Popa as a comedian (which is ¾ true):
‘Hey! You should come and do some comedy in New York’ he said, but before I had the chance to reply with a flattered yet emphatic ‘Well, as much as I’d love to I do have the children to think about and…’ the crowd had caught up with me and I got lost in it.
If that’s the sort of live gig that the elderly are going to then I’ll slip on my ‘footgloves’ and they can carry me off with them.
Katherine Bennett
