Aug 8, 2011

Celebration: Mummies!
by Tim Cain
for the Herald Review

There are some people who owe me an “I told you so” this morning.

H&R writer Jim Vorel, Jerry Johnson and Steve Jackson all raved to me about Here Come the Mummies at some point in the last nine months or so. I didn’t discount what they were saying, and I liked what I’d heard. But …

But I wasn’t expecting the best show I’ve ever seen at Decatur Celebration, which is what I got Saturday night when Here Come the Mummies played the Funfest Stage.

The band is impressive enough as a tight soul/funk unit that plays complex arrangements. (Admittedly of songs with titles like “Horizontal Man” and “Libido Knievel.”)

But even more impressive is the stage show. They entered the stage by walking through the audience, coming up Franklin St. at 8:40 or so on a Saturday night. And they were in full mummy regalia.

(There are people who do not dress as mummies who have trouble with the idea of negotiating Franklin on a Celebration Saturday night.)

And they went 90 minutes, non-stop. No talking to the crowd while catching their breath – the songs often went one directly into the next – no en masse five-minute stage walkoffs while someone soloed, no cheap and easy ways of taking breaks in the heat.

It was exhausting to watch them, let alone BE them. In one of the last numbers of the show, members were chasing one another onstage, running at full speed. Oh, and playing flawless funk the whole time.

These guys started on high, and accelerated.

And the crowd went right along with them. The biggest crowd I’d ever seen at Funfest prior to Saturday night was 2004, when Presidents of the United States of America drew a crazy crowd. Saturday’s was larger. And they stuck around. Very few people departed during the 90-minute set, and a throng stuck around after to meet and greet Mummies and load up on merchandise.

It was a great you-shoulda-been-there kind of show. If you hear anyone talking about it today, rest assured they were right.

And Jim, Jerry and Steve – sorry I ever doubted you.

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