Chris Roberts
On the Half Shell
Prairieville, Louisiana
Feb. 20
On the Half Shell is one of those restaurants I’ve always driven past but never stopped at because I was always driving by at the wrong time of day. So when I pulled up for dinner, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The restaurant is bigger than it looks from the outside with separate interconnected dining rooms. The live music is in the room with the bar, and it’s loud – so loud it feels like you’re at a party and not a casual night out. That’s the environment Chris Roberts and a drummer were playing classic rock covers in.
Roberts is a gifted pianist who used to work at a dueling piano bar in New Orleans with a minimal social media presence for his music. He and the drummer played tunes such as “Fire and Rain,” “Drift Away,” and “Brown Eyed Girl.” As a performer, Roberts is impressive. His set-up involved putting an electric keyboard on top of the restaurant’s Dutch grand piano. He’d play chords with one hand and a bass line with another. It was so good that I wondered from the other room if I’d missed a bassist sitting in the back.
On the Half Shell is booked with live music every day of the week but Monday. The bathrooms are adorned with the live music calendar. It makes sense: The space feels like it was built for this. They’re not a restaurant that decided to have some musicians come in. They’re a bar/music venue that happens to also be an excellent restaurant with oysters and other seafood fare. The music was infectious even from outside the room with the bar. Those in the room with them got up and danced to the music and sang along. It was like being at a wedding reception with live music but everyone was celebrating their own thing. Someone had a birthday, a family celebrated their parents’ wedding anniversary.
Those in other dining rooms had the option to let the music wash over them as the background to their evening and talk normally, or to walk in and out of the music area. It’s clever and versatile, and the restaurant allows for open seating. So those who haven’t figured it out yet (like me) could feel it out for themselves.
Like the venue, Roberts' performance hasdrange. He played songs with songs that were just piano with percussion and slower ballads. He also played the accordion solo in Billy Joel’s “Vienna” on the keyboard and a couple of intense bass solos all while scrolling the tabs on his phone and singing. It’s impressive to see someone not only do all this but make it look easy.
