Quartz @ BBW Heaven 03/11/21

One of my favorite venues in SL has been, for some years, BBW Heaven. This is one of those venues that has been open for a long time, 15 years in the case of BBW Heaven. The current keeper of the BBW tradition is the vivacious, Yvie Caproni. There aren't many people in SL who more for the live music than Yvie. In addition running BBW Heaven, with its regular line up of great singers, multiple venues and seasonal attractions, Yvie is co-coordinator of the Nashville Jam. Its worth dropping in on BBW Heaven just to plumb the depth's of Yvie's musical knowledge. Getting to adore the gorgeous BBWs that abound here is just a perk. When you get to catch a great singer, its like the perfect SL night.

As it turns out, November 3rd, was like a perfect SL night for me, well, that Yvie had the night off. BBW Heaven is so well managed Yvie can take a night off now and again to play some game called "RealLife", which quite frankly, sounds boring without teleports. Despite Yvie's absence, all the ingredients of a great night were present. Quartz took care of the awesome music end of the evening, and in spades.

In addition to being a great singer, Quartz is a multi-intrusmental song writer. He bookended his rocking set with original songs. Opening up the evenings party was his original song, "Night And Day". This roared into Cher's "Believe". It’s a rare thing to see a male singer make this work, Quartz did, and then some. Next up was the SL staple (and one of my favorite songs) "Chasing Cars" by Snowpatrol. Quartz' voice made all the right emotional connections with the varied audience. It was fantastic to see the crowd respond to his almost moaning some of of the lyrics. I guess its good Yvie wasn't there, we likely never would have peeled her off the stage.

SL has a lot of stuff, and a lot of some stuff, but not enough Supertramp. Quartz did yeoman's work making up the deficit with a world class delivery of a two pack starting with "From Now On" and flowing smoothly into "Breakfast In America". Continuing his tour d'force of underplayed songs, Quartz' rendition of "Bed Of Roses" with Bon Jovi's classic line "As I dream about movies, They won't make of me when I'm dead." reminded me we could all use more variety in both the artists and the songs covered in SL (and kudos to those who do! I'm making notes!).

Quartz then rocked "Brickhouse" like I haven't heard in almost a year. Really made the stage rock on the Commodores tribute to southern colloquialisms and well built women. Its great to see a class SL singer take on a classic RL singer, and Quartz did with Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", providing a powerful background sound for the couples (and singles) singing along in front of the BBW's Tiki Torches. Next up for our entertainment pleasure was the Thin Lizzy classic "The Boys Are Back In Town" (who knew they were Irish?) and finished off his cover set with The Kinks "What I Like About You". What I like about Quartz is the refined musical ability, crowd interaction and live performance over his own instruments.

Ending his string of fantastic covers wasn't the end of this amazing show. We had the other bookend of a Quartz original, "Misguided Hearts", a perfect end to this pitch perfect night of fun and friendship under the stars on the beautiful BBW beach.

Quartz is a Canadian singer and multi-instrumentalist with many years experience as a semi-professional musician in RL. Quartz is also a songwriter and has composed numerous of his own original songs. His genre is an eclectic range of classic, progressive & indie rock, from the cassette years to now. Quartz' powerful rich voice will grip any aficionado of these genres. This coupled with his witty, albeit slightly bent sense of humour creates a show that is highly entertaining.

Quartz also does tributes to Sir Elton John, Pink Floyd, Eagles, Queen and Genesis (this tribute can also include spin-off musicians such as Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel and Mike Rutherford). I definitely need to cover one of these tributes and you need to go catch a Quartz show, if you're lucky, it will be under the stars at BBW Heaven.