The Legendary Borderline Band: Still in Progress
Nearly five decades, countless musicians and one very long freight train
Note to self: when The Legendary Borderline Band is playing Puddy’s 25th anniversary party, don’t show up ten minutes before the band is supposed to go on and expect to find a seat.
The place was packed.
I eventually found a seat off to the side of the band, directly in front of a PA speaker. Not necessarily the best position in the house, but I was in. It helped me hear Mark Clifford's guitar better than most which was a plus for me!
There was good reason for the crowd.
Puddy’s was celebrating its 25th anniversary, and The Legendary Borderline Band was an appropriate choice for the occasion: they were the first band ever to play there when Puddy’s opened.
The band’s history goes back even further.
Borderline was founded in 1978. Back then they were simply Borderline. Somewhere along the way they became The Legendary Borderline Band, and on Sunday percussionist and MC Mike Dixon offered yet another variation:
“The Legendary Borderline Band in Progress.”
That may be the most accurate name yet.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many musicians have passed through this band over nearly five decades. Forty? Maybe more? I’ve seen numerous incarnations myself, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen exactly the same lineup twice.
Sunday’s nine-piece version was Curt Candler on trumpet, Alistair Robertson on saxophone, Steve Doede on bass and vocals, Mike Dixon on percussion and MC duties, Andy Smith on keyboards and vocals, Mark Clifford on guitar and vocals, Robert Speck on guitar, Kevin Droughan on drums, and Amie Page on lead vocals and percussion.
That’s a lot of musicians to start and stop at approximately the same time.
Dixon seemed well aware of it. After one particularly tidy ending, he congratulated his bandmates and explained the challenge:
“So many people in the band, it’s like trying to stop a freight train.”
It became a running joke throughout the afternoon. Every time that freight train came to another clean stop, Dixon seemed almost pleasantly surprised.
And there were plenty of opportunities to test the brakes.
One of the afternoon’s highlights came at the end of the first set with The Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Runnin’.” Robertson tore through a killer sax solo before a percussion break gave Dixon and Droughan room to go at it. Clifford followed with a terrific guitar solo, the entire thing kept building, and they brought the set home with a huge ending.
And yes, somehow they all stopped together.
Robertson was phenomenal throughout the afternoon. I’ve seen him play many times over the years and at this point I probably shouldn’t be surprised by him anymore.
I still am.
Steve Doede deserves a mention for his bass sound, too. His Fender Jazz Bass through a Gallien-Krueger head and Markbass cabinet was wonderfully punchy, cutting through a nine-piece band without ever overpowering it.
There was plenty of room for the unexpected. Mark Clifford even went Rasta for a reggae treatment of “Giving It Up for Your Love,” taking over the lead vocal in the process.
Amie Page impressed me with how much her singing has developed over the years. I first heard her at Puddy’s years ago when she was still a relatively new singer — good, but a little raw and green.
She’s come a long way since then.
On Sunday, “Let’s Stay Together” made that particularly apparent. She sounded confident and assured, and later found an impressive growl in “Heatwave.”
Dixon, meanwhile, spent the entire afternoon doing double duty on percussion and as the band’s good-humoured MC, filling the spaces between songs with stories, bits of Borderline and Puddy’s history and some gentle abuse of his fellow musicians. At one point he announced they’d be sticking around for a couple more sets because, apparently, they knew more songs than they thought they did.
Then local musician Marty Allen got up with the band.
There didn’t appear to be much rehearsal involved. At one point it was essentially “key of A,” a couple of bars to show everybody where a blues was headed, a collective okay, got it — and away they went.
It sounded great.
Allen eventually took things into Johnny Cash territory with “Ring of Fire,” a song I’ve never particularly cared for. With Borderline’s horns punching through it, however, I found myself enjoying the damned thing considerably more than I ever expected to.
Maybe it was the arrangement.
Maybe it was the beer and complimentary anniversary shots.
We’ll give the horns the benefit of the doubt.
By the beginning of the third set, The Legendary Borderline Band in Progress was living up to the name in an entirely different way.
A young bass player named Alexander appeared — exactly who he was or how he ended up there remains a mystery to me — and started jamming with Droughan.
And the guy could play.
He was flashy, fearless and had chops to spare, slapping the hell out of the bass while he and Droughan played off each other. Gradually, other members of the band began joining them.
The groove developed, shifted and eventually started sounding suspiciously familiar.
Somewhere along the way, this improvised jam had found its way into James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good).”
And once everybody found it, it killed.
It also seemed like a pretty good demonstration of The Legendary Borderline Band in Progress: start with a drummer and a young bass player, let everybody else find their way in, and somehow end up with James Brown.
As the afternoon turned into evening, more people were dancing and the anniversary drinks continued flowing.
It was getting later.
The crowd was getting drunker.
So was I.
In other words, it was a Puddy’s anniversary party.
After 25 years, Puddy’s still has live music — and on Sunday, an awful lot of it. After nearly 50 years, The Legendary Borderline Band can still pack the place, still find a groove and, remarkably, still stop together.
The Legendary Borderline Band in Progress.
I think Mike Dixon may have finally found the right name.