My faith has been crushed, my devotion queried, my
world turned topsy-turvy ...my preconceptions of performance thrown ruthlessly into
the quagmire of day to day life. Oh, how
the mighty have fallen from the rafters on high!

Last night m.e. and i went out to Chalkers Pub to
check out Robi Botos. I thought, hey we
need to eat, the food at Chalkers is decent, m.e. has never seen Robi live and
i just can’t seem to get enough of his energy and creativity. We took the TTC to Chalkers and i gotta say
that for a place stuck in the middle of butt-fuck-nowhere it is really pretty
easy for us to get to by transit, possibly less time than it might take to get
to the College Street strip ...it’s just around the corner from the Glencairn
station.

Robi’s performance was atrocious, miserable,
lifeless, soulless. I’m sure you’ve all
been in a bar or restaurant where there was a pianist playing in the background
...playing a loungey jazz that fails to move you ...a jazz that leaves you cold
and bored with your mind wandering, but you are forced to listen in the hopes
that the object of your attention is warming up and is going to open his eyes,
pick up the pace and let loose? ...it never happened.

Robi was billed as performing a single solo set
starting at 7:30; fine, i figured it was a nice way to spend an hour and a half
over dinner ...it was painful. I was
about to make a request (Night in Tunisia that i have seen him rock out on) so
that he might be ignited, but alas, he said he was done. I have never been so disappointed in a
show. If i am correct, i think he was
off to the Rex to play a real gig. I
have to hand it to Robi that he is an exceedingly hard working musician, and i often
wonder how great musicians get themselves motivated to play, night after night,
often playing in front of tiny audiences ...well, apparently sometimes they don’t!

Pool tables at Chalkers were a welcome substitute
for more disappointing music.