HOB Anaheim Sunday Gospel Brunch

We went to House of Blues Anaheim Sunday Gospel Brunch on August 17 to celebrate our cousin’s birthday and other cousins’ first wedding anniversary.  House of Blues Anaheim is in Downtown Disney, a collection of shops and restaurants outside Disneyland.  It’s similar to Citywalk that’s outside Universal Studios Hollywood.  We got there by taking the 5 South, exiting at Disneyland Drive, turning left on Magic Way, and then left into the Downtown Disney parking lot.  The lot allowed two hours of free parking and we were able to increase that to five hours with validation from the House of Blue.  Once parked, we entered Downtown Disney, walked past the ESPN Store, turned right near the AMC movie theater, and walked by several shops until we saw House of Blues on the left.

The box office for House of Blues Anaheim is on the ground floor.  However, we had to climb the wide steps in front to get to where they took our tickets.  We then had to go back downstairs to get to the venue.  They seated all of us at two long tables in the back.  We then went to the restaurant/bar within the building but behind the venue.  There they had a long table with the buffet.  There were many items I couldn’t have such as cheeses, waffles with fruit and butter and pasta with cheese.  I was able to have many other things, though.  The eggs, bacon, and sausage were fairly standard breakfast fare and the pickled vegetables, jambalaya, and home fries were very good.  They also had a table where we could order omelets with any choice of ingredients.  I didn’t order one but others in our party did and they enjoyed them.  After getting our food we returned to the main venue.  There a waiter served us our choice of drinks.  The venue had bars on either side, both closed, and the room with the buffet also had a large bar in the back open and selling drinks.

The buffet opened 1 pm and the show started around 2.  The curtain opened to four female African American gospel singers, a drummer, bassist, guitarist, and keyboard player.  Another woman served as announcer/emcee.  The four singers wore outfits of pink, light purple, light green, and yellow.  The singer in yellow had these long fingernails that a baby in the audience enjoyed watching.  They introduced themselves as the Clara Ward singers and they mentioned that they were in both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian.  One singer said she had been with the group for 48 years.  The drummer and keyboard player were her grown grandsons.  They sang many gospel songs I hadn’t heard before such as “Ain’t Nobody do it like Jesus”, the more rhythmic “Blessed Assurance”, “Never Would Have Made it Without You” (written by Clara Ward), and “How I Got Over”.  They did a couple of familiar tunes: “This Little Light of Mine”, and a soulful version of the non-gospel song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as a tribute to Judy Garland.

The emcee and singers encouraged much audience participation.  During the first number they had us wave our napkins like handkerchiefs.  Between songs the emcee asked everyone with a birthday or anniversary to stand up and she talked to them from the stage.  She had fun talking to my cousins who were celebrating their first anniversary.  During another song the singer in green walked around the audience coaxing people to follow her back onto the stage.  Once there she had each of them give their “testimony” usually things for which they were thankful.  Some really got into it, singing along and dancing.  The singers would have the audience clap to the rhythm and sing parts of the songs.  They’d have us call out “Amen”, or “Hallelujah” or the spoken line “There ain’t no party like a Holy Ghost party ‘cause a Holy Ghost party don’t stop.”  For the finale they had everyone celebrating a birthday or anniversary get up on stage and dance their own version of the “House of Blues Shake”.  They gave an enthusiastic performance that would not allow us to be mere spectators.  They packed a lot into just one hour.