So. The Lunchbox scored some tickets to the Verizon 2003 Music Festival performance of Koko Taylor, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Bo Diddley.

The evening started off with a plan: eat at a sports bar on my block, then hit the Performing Arts Center. Unfortunately, sports bar's kitchen had closed at 4PM, and even the offer of free tickets couldn't convince them to cook us dinner. So we walked around until we came to one of the few restaurants open in downtown Tampa (the city that never gets out of bed).

Showtime. No, not yet. First, some soulless Verizon mid-level executive had to sing the praises of his company, making sure he got the name out about sixty times. It was like sitting through the timeshare presentation before claiming our free prize. Yes, we know Verizon is sponsoring it; you've got that huge banner up as a backdrop.

Koko Taylor's band came on first. The lead guitarist, who resembled Chris Rock, led a good number in which his guitar "sang" the part of his girlfriend. For some reason, his fifty-cent bottle of wine wasn't enough to warm her heart, so he demonstrated his lingual dexterity by playing the guitar with his tongue. Apparently, it was a convincing argument.

Koko was great, but (a) the sound guy had all the knobs turned up to eleven, so it was difficult to make out the words she was singing, and (b) the guy running the spotlight didn't feel it was necessary to illuminate a soloist unless he'd been playing for at least five or six seconds.

I guess there's some truth to the stereotype that white people are rhythm deficient. I was going to use as my example one particular gentleman a couple of rows in front of us, who was lurching back and forth as though he was davening out of time with the music, but he kept on doing it after the music had ended. Plenty of other examples abounded, though, like the bald guy in front of me who rocked his head from side to side, about 80% slower than the actual tempo — so about one time out of five, his head reached apogee on the beat.

Throughout the entire concert, people were just yelling things at the performers. Monosyllabic things like "Woooh!" and "Yeah!" mostly, but occasionally longer bursts, like "You tell it!" I was sorely tempted to shout "Random interjection!" but forebore so as not to embarrass my friends.

When the intermission came, Soulless Verizon Mid-Level Executive announced that we were at the Verizon 2003 Music Festival, as though we had all gone blind and contracted amnesia. I think he did some more pimping of his company, but I decided to take advantage of the intermission. I was held up from leaving the restroom by a knot of five guys clustered around the paper towel dispenser, trying to figure out how to get towels out of it. The instructions clearly, though ungrammatically, stated: If no paper, turn wheel, but these were guys who preferred to blaze their own experimental trail.

Clarence Brown started. Like The Lunchbox and Lisa, I preferred his first two songs and his fiddle medley to some of his other pieces, but the other pieces didn't exactly suck.

I guess not all white guys are rhythm-deficient, as the band was all white. The saxophonist was an immense guy — both Lisa and I thought he looked like a giant midget — who absolutely dwarfed his alto sax. This was kind of the opposite of my high school jazz band experience, when I (the smallest guy in the band) was the one playing the baritone sax. The drummer seemed to be holding a running conversation with himself as he played.

Once again, the sound board seemed to be run by a poorly trained monkey rather than a musically literate engineer. When the sound levels are so high that you can hear the hum of the lines, it's time to rethink your mixing strategy.

After Gatemouth's set, we were treated to Alan Ciamporcero, President of Verizon in the Southeast, pimping his company. "We're the ones bringing this to you," he boasted. "None of those other phone companies are doing this! We're even letting you bring drinks in here! Would AT&T do that? MCI?" Well, since it's the Performing Arts Center that sets the policy on drinks in the auditorium, what the smeg are you bragging about, moron? He tried to engage the enthusiasm of the audience, who ignored him for the most part as he reiterated the Verizon name ad nauseam. We got the point, pinhead. Verizon Verizon Verizon Malkovich Verizon. When he was done blathering, Sarasota Slim came over and discussed the bass player's sound with The Lunchbox (who works with Slim's wife).

Bo Diddley. Surprisingly, not only was his band all white, it was half female (keyboardist and bassist). He came out and sat down, strapped on a guitar that looked like an enormous mousetrap with a fretboard attached. During the performance, it revealed itself to be a MIDI guitar, something I hadn't expected from the 75-year-old blues musician. He explained to the crowd that he couldn't stand up because his sciatic nerve was giving him trouble. (Inside joke: see, that's what it does to you; it doesn't prevent you from wearing a certain style of clothing.)

One of the first songs he sang was a hilarious number called Shut up, woman. I know it sounds misogynistic from the title, but the woman had the upper hand. And a razor blade, eventually.

One song he did was completely out of character with the rest of the set. I don't recall its name, but it took a little while to get going. I'm all about MIDI, but an orchestral string sound coming out of a guitar is just wrong.

He had to cut one song ("Leave") out of his act, because it was closing in on 11PM, which is when the union stagehands' overtime kicks in. Still, it wasn't enough; during his final song, they first turned on the house lights while he was singing, then Verizon sent Bo Diddley's manager to take his guitar away from him. It didn't deter him; he just kept on singing. The Lunchbox and Lisa have already described the rest of the abysmally rude treatment he received at the direction of Soulless Verizon Mid-Level Executive, and our experience meeting The Originator backstage.

I have never seen a performer treated so abysmally by a sponsor. Even if you have no respect for the audience, how could you do that to Bo Diddley? Well, at least we knew who to blame for it, since they only told us 16,384 times that it was Verizon who was putting on the show. Everyone within earshot of me was indignant about Verizon's treatment of the music legend, so their little stunt generated a lot of well-deserved badwill.

Fucking Verizon.