The Blues Brothers – Treasure Island Resort & Casino – Welch MN – December 31st 2018

Treasure Island Resort & Casino presents The BLUES BROTHERS

The Blues Brothers band playing classic RnB hits for a New Year’s Eve show at Treasure Island.  Sounds like a fun party? It sure was!

Original Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi front the band, with a regular House of Blues house band The Sacred Hearts behind them.   A couple quick instrumentals show off the Texicali Horns, named by Stevie Ray Vaughn per Belushi during the show.

Playing a similar setlist to the their show in the Twin Cities last October, Aykroyd (as Elwood Blues) and Belushi (as Brother Zee) join as the band starts up “Sweet Home Chicago”, featuring Aykroyd on harmonica. Some great songs followed both from the Blues Brothers past catalog, as we well as a few RnB and blues standards.

“Hard to Handle” from Otis Redding showed off the horns again.    Howlin’ Wolf’s “Three Hundred Pounds of Joy” led to fun moment with Belushi showing a little skin, a proud belly!  More favorites came from the stage in “Flip, Flop and Fly”, “*I Got Everything I Need) Almost”, “B Movie Boxcar Blues”, and Aykroyd taking the mic for “Rubber Biscuit”   Members of the band got some time out front as well, with Johnny Rubano taking a turn.  Melodye Perry-Teamer was a show stopper covering Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman”.

Three minutes to midnight, and the clocks on the video screen started to count down to Midnight.  A perfectly timed main set closer “Soul Man” ended with ten seconds to go until 2019, leading to everyone counting in the new year in unison!

They never left the stage, but after the New Year’s celebration they started the year with “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” and “Money (That’s What I Want), before everyone left in a great mood!

Review and photos by Brian Curski