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Bob Phelan, 55, who traveled from Massachusetts to see Saffire, shows off his tattoo of the group.
Gaye Adegbalola and Andra Faye (right) celebrate their last performance together with Saffire with a drink of tequila before going onstage at UMW's Dodd Auditorium last night. The group has performed for 25 years.
Ann Rabson smiles to the hometown crowd at Dodd Auditorium after performing one of her songs with Saffire during their final performance. |
By CATHY DYSON
More than 1,250 people stood up and cheered the moment that Saffire--The Uppity Blues Women--took the stage for their final concert last night, and the applause continued throughout the 2-hour show.
After 25 years of performing throughout the world, the Fredericksburg-based group gave its final performance in front of a packed house at Dodd Auditorium at the University of Mary Washington.
The crowd was as diverse as the many topics that Gaye Adegbalola, Ann Rabson and Andra Faye sing about and the instruments they've mastered.
It included record producers and songwriters, as well as people like Mary Wil-liams, who went to school with Adegbalola when classes were segregated, then later taught with her at Walker-Grant Middle School.
"So, we go way back," said Williams, the nurse at James Monroe High School.
The auditorium also contained people from practically every state in the nation. When Adegbalola asked how many traveled more than 200 miles to get there, a good portion of the audience roared.
"We're like Deadheads, only for Saffire," said Dorothy Johnson of Connecticut, whose group included relatives from Kansas and central Texas.
Next to them in line before the show was a woman from Wisconsin.
When Adegbalola asked about people from faraway places, members of the audience shouted out their home states: Louisiana, California, Florida, Illinois.
Saffire members weren't surprised to see so many faithful fans.
"People from Fredericksburg have shown up everywhere we've played, except maybe in Australia," Rabson said.
Then Adegbalola remembered seeing a student she'd taught at a show in Australia, so that exception wasn't even valid.
Cookie Boyd, a Norfolk resident who has probably been to 10 Saffire concerts since she first saw them in 1984, said the band always draws a crowd.
"They have a good following everywhere," she said. "It's just the energy of their music, it's so empowering."
As Saffire took the audience on a walk down memory lane, many in the crowd sang along to lyrics about big ovaries and thunder thighs, too much butt and "struttin' my stuff." Likewise, the audience laughed and cheered to the video "Bald-Headed Blues," which featured local men and women singing and dancing along as Saffire sang about battling cancer--and the side effects of chemotherapy.
"People respond to how genuine they are," said Bill Reiser, a Michigan man who has worked with Saffire on library programs to promote the blues. "Their songs are as honest as it gets."
Johnny Witter of New York, whose son died of brain cancer, helped produce and direct the "Bald-Headed Blues" video. He called Saffire a supergroup, a threesome as awesome as Crosby, Stills & Nash.
"Individually, they're incredibly talented, and when you put them all together, what more could you want?" he said. "Besides my daughter and my girlfriend, these are my three most-favorite ladies in the world."
Those like Brenda Sloan, who worked 21 years in the library at the University of Mary Washington before she moved to North Carolina, knew the history of Saffire. She admired the way Adegbalola and Rabson gave up successful careers--Adegbalola taught physical science and Rabson was a computer analyst--to start the group in 1984 and sing the blues full time.
Faye, a registered nurse, joined the trio in 1992.
"How many people can do that and be successful?" Sloan said, greeting friends she hadn't seen in a while as if she were at a reunion.
Others liked seeing women on stage who looked like real people, sang about issues they could relate to and were closer to their own age.
"They're beautiful women, and they're a little bit older, and that's nice to see," said Joyce O'Donnell of Fredericksburg. "They're not teeny-boppers."
People who lived five minutes--or five hours--away from Dodd Auditorium said they felt the same way as Reiser, who drove from the western tip of Lake Erie to be at the Fredericksburg concert.
"There's nowhere else on the planet I would rather be tonight," he said.
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
