Last night I went to the Wiltern to see Widespread Panic, and you’ll never guess who was there. Unless you guess Taylor Hicks. Which you might if you read my previous post. My roommate came back from the bar in the Wiltern and told me he’d seen Taylor Hicks there. I joked that no way would I be seeing Mr American Idol at two concerts in a row. But of course two seconds later I saw that shiny gray hair pass by. I turned to my other friends, told them the Robert Randolph story, and proclaimed how we’d see Hicks play soon. But he didn’t come out on stage till the encore, and with little fanfare. The band didn’t introduce him, but all of a sudden there was a new sound, a harmonica, and a gray-haired guy on the side of the stage playing it. He blew that harp with pure blues gusto. I was standing much closer then I was at the Greek for Randolph, so I could see the way Widespread was watching him play and letting him lead the jam. They let him unleash, and the crowd went nuts – and I don’t even think that crowd had a clue who he was.

– Jason Bryan