“When the temple is prepared within
Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside?”

        –The Rubaiyat

And the faithful did come! Both shows sold out.

It's never easy, studying the audience, to figure out what the typical Maytals fan is supposed to be like. For a moment, it almost seemed like it was 1961. There were a lot of dudes in Classic California: the baggy shorts, the Madrassy shirts. Maybe the Kingston Trio is going to come out, I thought. And the opening act turned out to be a trio headed by a former professional surfer, with acoustic guitar, playing a pleasant enough folk-rock like music, a sort of updated, alternate-universe Kingston Trio, to really stretch the conceit just a bit farther than it's really worth.

There were quite a few shaven-headed guys. Maybe these were the second- or third-wave ska fans who come to check out the Ska Father. Of course, there's always a bunch of over-inebriated frat types. It's hard to say what the attraction is for them. Toots does sing, "Louie, Louie." Maybe that's it.

There's always a few white dreadlocks (deadlocks? dreadheads?), although they don't generally turn out in force for the un-lockled Maytals. One thing there's not many of is black people, and very, very few people Toots' own age, and, of course, the one person who apparently never sets foot in the Fox Theater, the Boulder Fire Marshal.

I read once that the first recording by Toots and the Maytals back around '61 was an actual musical church service comprising both sides of the record. If that's true, then fundamentally, little has changed in forty years. Toots still sings the same old songs. They're not merely gospel-tinged, and sometimes actual reworked hymns, but through the years all the songs have become anthems. The faithful come hoping to be inspired. They come hoping to hear Toots breathe new life and fire into the old and familiar, and they are not disappointed. I've never seen a Maytals show where he did not sing "54-46 (Was My Number)." Toots spent time in prison many years ago for ganga possession. He is quite clear that he believes in the Herb, he holds it to be sacramental. But he is equally clear that he was the victim of a crude police frameup, and he is never going to let this injustice be forgotten . But no one show could cover all the songs.

There's no sermon, as such, in this service. The homilies and exhortations to love and charity are no longer than the usual onstage patter between songs. The music is left to carry the message. There is much call and response with the audience. There is much physical contact, the audience reaching up to touch Toots,Toots reaching down to touch the outstretched hands of his congregation, Toots venturing as far as possible out into the packed throng, his mike cable bourne aloft like a telegraph line on the upreaching arms of the audience. This is the laying on of hands.

Then at some point, the audience is invited onstage and the dance floor tries to empty itself onto the stage until the stage seems almost impossibly packed, the band all but lost in a turbulent mass of celebrants. There are always some entertaining Jiggly Gurls who seem to confuse what chance and genetics hath wrought with personal accomplishment. "Look at this! Look at this!" they proudly shout in bodyspeak, and we do, we do!

When the song ends and the stage gradually empties, as many people as possible pause to touch and embrace Toots, the charismatic preacher. There are inevitably a few of the more dense and drunk who try to clamber back onstage again when the music resumes. A few people in the audience shout "Get down!" until they realize the ambiguity of this. The strays are gently herded from the stage, and the music continues. There isn't a very explicit theology, either, but rather an easygoing ecumenism. Toots may refer to "Jesus," "Ras Tafari," even "Allah" in the same song. Nor are there the more visible religious trappings of dreadlocks and biblical-looking vestments that accompany some later-day reggae. Toots and most of the Maytals are short-haired and dressed more like R&B performers than Old Testament patriarchs.

As the show reaches its final crecendo, Toots seizes a couple of bottles of water from onstage and seemingly spontaneously sprinkes the contents over the heads of the dancers crowding the stage. This gesture is not of the sports arena, but of the church. Here is the baptism of Toots' Baptist roots. People raised as New England Episcopalians might miss the symbolism here, but for almost anyone who has lived in the rural south the harmonies and fervor of a Toots and the Maytals performance have the inescapable flavor of the revival meeting. And we are revived!

Even I, who believe in neither Jesus, Allah or Ras Tafari, am revived and uplifted by this celebration of good-heartedness and joy. And why not?

Come back soon, Toots.

To see some available light shots by "Rick" straight from the congregation, go HERE.

-The Old Boulder Bozo