KICKING IT UP A NOTCH WITH SHINYRIBS                                               Travelin'  With The Red Neck Road Dogs                                                         Dennis and Brenda Kippa When we get a chance to attend a concert by someone we've seen before and really enjoyed, we feel especially fortunate. Most of the bands we have told you about travel a huge circuit, which means they don't get to our area very often. When we find out that one of our favorites are booked at a location that's within our reach, we have a knee-jerk reaction that always culminates with tickets in hand. By the time the date arrives, we have gone over the prior performance(s) many times in our heads. We can't wait to see everything we have loved, just like before. Of course the first concert is never really duplicated, and I suppose that the only thing that ought to be surprising about that is the fact that it surprises us every time it happens. Recently, we jumped in the car for a trip to Dallas, which is a trip I drove every single day for a very long time. Now, it seems like a journey where we ought to pack sandwiches and check to see if all insurance is paid up before we back away from the house. The fact that it goes by quickly doesn't lessen the feeling that we're someplace far, far away when we get there. Maybe that's as it should be when the occasion is our second concert by Shinyribs. If you've been reading this column for awhile, maybe you remember that I likened the first Shinyribs concert to jumping down the rabbit hole, because our findings were much like what Alice found. That time, we drove over four hours to get there, then spent the evening slack-jawed, sitting on folding chairs side-by-side with a college crowd who adored the band. We didn't expect any less of a show this time, and frankly we didn't know if we could take it if it were any more of a show. But it was... and we did. They upped the game by the addition of the "horns" that sometimes play for Uncle Lucius. Tiger Daniel Anaya on trumpet and Mark Wilson on sax are the Tijuana TrainWreck, and their antics, along with the craziness between Kevin Russell (lead vocals) and Winfield Cheek (keys) and the other band members, made it a riot onstage. What we couldn't have expected was the mix of attitudes of those watching the show from the same table where we were sitting. Love and War in Plano was the venue; it wasn't our first time to be there. Of all the places your road dogs haunt, this place offers the least amout of consideration to one's behinds; that is to say, the bench-type seats (with picnic tables) are narrow and hard. On this night, we were packed in like sardines, which may not have been as noticeable if everyone were enjoying the festivities as much as we were. However, sitting across from us were two ladies who came for reasons unapparent, and although one seemed to be tapping a toe now and then, the other was downright miserable. After awhile, her scowl got the better of her friend, and they left. On the other side of us was a young lady and her parents. The parents had clearly been dragged there because of their love for their daughter, but their confusion was profound and I felt sympathy for their situation, even though the father offered a little smile now and then. I think the young lady was a huge fan, but her parents had a ways to go in understanding what Shinnyribs was all about. The grand finale of the show was "Poor People's Store", which was one of the songs that we (fooloshly) tried to sing along with at the last concert. We could tell that there was to be no mercy shown by the band toward anyone who seemed to think they could keep up; by now the band was on a roll. Just when we were wondering if we going to be able to survive the fun, Mr. Ribs (Kevin Russell) jumped down off the stage and began to dance - in his own, no-bones kind of way - with everyone on the dancefloor.  A conga line quickly formed, and that's when the horn players - who were still playing their music  jumped down and joined the line, prancing along and moving their horns left and right like an animated toy box. The line got longer and longer, and snaked in and around the tables, until it was too long to maneuver anymore and all participants were wasted. It was a performance just like and nothing like the first one, both at the same time. Bravo! --