You are robbing from yourself if you don’t find a chance to see King Khan and the Shrines during this year’s festival. From the moment Khan steps onto the stage, cape flowing and beer pitcher in hand, the audience is within his grasp. An unholy concoction of Elvis, Ike Turner and the Sonics, it wasn’t more than ten minutes before the small crowd at Bird’s Barbershop was singing back a slamming call-and-response on the topic of transsexuals.

The Shrines are actually Germans with two French dudes apparently in the mix as well. The King is a dirty man, and entreated the crowd to admire the French saxophonists, “long, flexible and durable” fingers.

Khan and the Shrines have their sound down to a blistering R&B complete with horns, a saxaphone, keyboard, and the usual assortment of rock instruments. Crowded together on stage they danced in time on some numbers while shoe in Bird’s gravelly backyard twisted deep holes in the stones beneath their feet. At the end of one song, an awkward looking German was waving his full-sized keyboard above his head and grinning like a bastard.

Khan is a showman of the best sort, jumping into the crowd, urging every audience member to dance like crazy and flail about. A presumably German cheerleader danced on stage hoisting big black pom-poms, but the clambering beat thrown behind him is incentive enough. The music live, and perhaps especially so in the crowded sunshine, felt like I imagine James Brown felt when he took “gorilla” which is cocaine and gunpowder dipped in embalming fluid and a whole brass band at your command. The Shrines played an extended “psychedelic erotic gospel” tune that graphically described Khan being reborn by climbing inside his woman’s vagina. The disgusting, hilarious story is full of asides like, “If I fell out she would be my mom and that would change everything.” Dance, laugh, sing, drink, repeat. If you get to see King Khan and the Shrines, you are guaranteed a good time.

Words by Jacob Cottingham, Photos by Cory Ryan