Bobby Young and Band, Blues Mondays
3629 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Oakland
March 10 & 17, 2025
Denied access to the sizable back patio because of “zoning issues,” smokers lined the narrow walkway to the restrooms at the rear of the historic Eli's Mile High Club.
After beastmoding my way through a cloud to get to the loo, I found that the bathrooms have the ambience of a DIY punk club. They likely had a different aesthetic fifty years ago when this famed Oakland blues bar first opened, but the vandalism vibe is consistent with the current iteration of this North Oakland icon.
Eli Thornton opened the club in 1974. By the 1980s, it had become a world famous venue.
After several decades as the “Home of the West Coast Blues,” Eli’s has been a gentrified rock-and-roll dive bar for most of this century. Maybe this is pure coincidence, but the venue has also had issues with noise complaints from the neighborhood throughout the past decade. Not sure if new neighbors or the new music is the problem.
In any event, current owner Mathew Patane says that the establishment is in need of financial and legal assistance after being forced to downsize operations. It's just the latest chapter in a long history of operating challenges that the establishment has faced.
Nat Bolden's house band rocks Blue Mondays at Eli's Mile High Club on March 17, 2025.
Perhaps because of the recent press, perhaps because it was Monday, Eli’s was packed when I visited earlier this month.
Along with the old concert flyers that still adorn the walls, Blue Mondays are the last vestige of the legacy that built Eli’s. The popular jam session, with rotating house bands, isn’t strictly blues though. It’s more like soul, with a little Berkeley sprinkled in.
In an era when “DJs” don’t even have to actually be DJs anymore, any live music venue is definitely appreciated by those who are so inclined.
At Blue Mondays, there’s no cover, no long wait to get a drink, and more importantly, there are many talented musicians honing their craft.
On this particular night, the house band was Bobby Young. The crowd was diverse, multigenerational, and upbeat.
Even though it was my first time attending Blue Mondays, I signed up to play, and took the stage around 10pm, when the crowd density seemed to be peaking.
After two uneventful songs, I screwed up on the third. We were playing “One Way Out,” and I just zoned out and missed the first break. I was neither high nor drunk: I just wasn’t locked in. I did a fill through the break, so most people might not have even noticed my mistake, but I knew it happened, and I was annoyed.
We finished the song fine, and as the musicians were exiting the stage for the next lineup, someone from the audience yelled, “Hey Drummer!”
A sharply dressed gentleman with a cane sitting by the side of the stage waved me over, and I thought to myself, “this OG gonna tell me I messed up.”
But he didn’t.
“I like the way you play!” He shouted, then he extended his hand towards me, and said, “I’m Fillmore Slim.”
I shook his hand and told him I was honored, and we exchanged numbers.
Now, I can't be the first person to whom the West Coast Godfather of the Game has bragged about trips to Europe and Aruba, but it was flattering nonetheless. If nothing else, it was validation when I needed it.
And it was all because of Blue Mondays.
