Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express
Club Café, Pittsburgh, PA
March 3, 2023
Out on the road performing a few shows around the US in advance of an upcoming European tour, Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express came out swinging as they took the stage in Pittsburgh and voraciously tore into a two-hour celebration of his work. Sans Stephanie Finch on this date, Chuck, guitarist James DePrato, bassist Kevin T. White and drummer Vicente Rodriguez kept the energy level high from the first note to the last.
Club Café is not a big room, but it is a warm one, and it was packed with Chuck’s fans local to “the ‘burgh” and out-of-towners – veteran fans eager for that connection Chuck provides as well as some first-timers who are now enlightened. A Chuck Prophet show is – at least from this reviewer’s perspective – more about that connection, the vibe and the performance than it is about the individual songs themselves.
That said, the songs drove the agenda for the evening, the band was tight, with just the right amount of rough edges to remind you that The Mission Express is a rock & roll band. The setlist was packed with Chuck Prophet classics, some less familiar songs – “He Came From So Far Away” and the Kim Carnes collaboration “Just to See You Smile” as examples, and a couple of covers – Alex Chilton’s “Bangkok” and a brief tribute to Jeff Beck during the encore took their place among the evening’s selections.
At the time of this writing, Chuck has one more performance in the US, at the end of March in Livermore, California. After that, it’s mainland Europe and the UK from April through the middle of June. Anyone on that side of “the pond” should check http://chuckprophet.com and get out to see what the fuss is all about. For us Yanks, we’re already eagerly awaiting our next fix.
Enjoy our previous coverage here: