BrownMarkNation

Just back from 2 shows of Sheila E. playing on her own at Yoshi’s Jazz club in San Francisco. Great time! Sheila looked and sounded great, and was not afraid to let us know she is 52 and still slamming! She had on the highest heels I had ever seen!!! After her opening number, she had to catch her breath but made us laugh about it, saying it was hard to rock those heels, play percussion, sing and look good all at the same time.

She opened both shows with a new song that Prince wrote for her and that was supposed to be on the E Family album: “Leader of the Band”. Really good song. Other songs she played during the night: Oliver’s House, Love Bizarre, Holly Rock, Pop Life (she segued into this song after playing percussion solo while sitting on a box, no lie!), Glorious Train, Get on the Boat (with an addition to the chorus “Get on the boat Jesus!”), another new one called “Mona Lisa”, Glamorous Life and America. Each show was about 1:20 minutes.

At the end of the second show, she stuck around for one more song after her Glamorous Life encore. Then she announced a special guest was there to join her – Brown Mark of the Revolution! He came out and played bass on America which was funky and went on for awhile. Brother Juan Escovedo also came out for that one and Lynn Mabry helped out on vocals. Sheila was having fun in the encore – by this time she had taken off her death-defying shoes. " />

Sheila E. merchandise was sold between shows and after the second show, and Sheila was on hand to sign anything you bought. They were selling a 5-song CD called “From E 2 U” for $20 which included 1) Leader of the Band 2) Mona Lisa 3) Glorious Train 4) Waters of Life 5) Trust me. They were also selling pairs of drumsticks and a drum pad. Sheila signed all our stuff in a flurry. I asked her if she was planning to tour solo and she said that Yoshi’s had a cancellation so she was just trying this out for the night. When she intro’d the band at each show, she let the audience know that three of them had never played with her before that night. Literally the soundcheck was their first time. So given that, the band sounded awesome and FUNKY!

The crowd had a lot of love for Sheila and she was on fire all night, really enjoying herself. While I like seeing her play with her family, this was a great treat just to see and hear Sheila play her stuff. And it was nice to be able to scream for her, not feeling bad that the rest of her family was up there too. " /> Sheila brought a lot of people on stage to dance, sing, whatever – including a couple of little kids who were adorable. Sheila was really, really playful with the crowd. So much Prince in her too with her dancing, flirting, etc.