I think the only band I've seen play more than once is the NO BS! Brass Band; I've seen them five times since its inception. The reason I've seen them so much is partially because one of my friends from back in middle school, Reggie Pace, is one of the founders. As we went through middle and high school together, we discovered we like a lot of the same music so of course his band does nothing but make music I like.

Last night was the continuation of their “Alive in Richmond” CD release party and, since I inexplicably still live in Hampton although I work in the metro Richmond area and have for the past three years, I headed to the Taphouse in Norfolk to hear them play. They announced that they were going to play the album all the way through; it made my week.

I got the album roughly a month before the official release, a week after I officially put in my two weeks' notice at my old job in Petersburg. It's been a constant fixture in my car and my computer since then. I've played the last movement of “The Ballad of the Eagle Claw” 75 times so far on my computer so I average playing it twice a day on my computer alone. I can get obsessive about songs. I've played one Astor Piazzolla song nearly 5,000 times since December 2006, when I got my current laptop.

I stood at the corner of the smoky bar drinking an Aventinus then a Killians and then a Framboise Lambic with two of my fraternity brothers. I had a great view of the 11-piece behemoth whose mass of trombones, trumpets, a saxophone, a tuba, drums and a gong barely fit on the stage. By the time the opening notes of “Landmines” rolled in didgeridoo-like as a trombone bell engulfed a microphone, I had stopped talking to them. I sung along to “Ain't Even Gonna Call Ya,” “Jackpot!” and “Bitch iz Beast.” I hummed along to “Lando,” “Juniper” and everything else.

They broke the performance into two sets. After their rendition of “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, they took a break. One of my brothers had to get up in the morning and another wanted to see how good/bad a party was. I had said in the e-mail I sent out inviting people that I was going to the concert and not the party. Since they were playing the album in order, I wasn't leaving until I heard the gong marking the beginning and then all of Eagle Claw.

Eagle Claw is a homage to the 1978 martial arts film “Five Deadly Venoms.” The nearly 20-minute opus, written by Reggie, is divided into three movements by three duels between him on the trombone and the drummer, Lance Koehler. Any poorly-dubbed and -edited martial arts film fan would wonder from which movie he has managed not to see those notes came.

Last night, the continuity between the entire piece was further cemented and the first duel gradually became the first movement, Iron Palm. Iron Palm starts off slowly and with enough flourish to suggest a production company's logo in the opening credits or a mythical sea creature rising from the waves and beginning to smash an Asian coastal city. It then quickly picks up speed and is lacking only the wacka-dum-wacka-dum-wacka-dum-wacka-dum of a guitar not sound like a song certainly made in 1978 before the high-powered saxophone solo and the abrupt gong-sounding close.

I had said that the album was almost over and we'd leave after the last two songs. My brothers were starting to check the time on their phones by then because “Cinnamon Girl” is almost a prelude and they never stopped playing since the second set began. I then mentioned that Eagle Claw was 20 minutes long and the end is my favorite part. Anyway, I got one of them back at a decent hour to get a good night's sleep and the party was lame so the other didn't miss anything.

Next up was The Lizard, which is a little more low key as far as intensity, which is good planning when it comes to music, especially such a large piece and leads up to what I feel is the main event.

The unwieldy-named The Centipede/Toad=Mantis Style/The Student begins as a straightforward orient-themed funky '70s throwback before the low end signals the second movement of this movement that becomes a display of trombone showmanship that, last night, included a trombone slide meeting a ceiling fan the hard way. Despite that hiccup, the song seemed to promise a kick-ass ending and delivers with a transition into the final trumpet solo: my favorite part.

For about two minutes the band slowly gains power behind the soloist until it is such a crescendo that it gives me chills whenever I'm listening to it in the proper setting. I'll never forget the first time I heard it. It was during the Virginia Commonwealth University Brassfest. I was floored. The Taphouse was no concert hall but having the band right there in my face still made it electric as the song wound down, the band put down their instruments and sung the final notes.

You have not lived until you have a friend write one of your favorite songs and you hear it live several times.

On the way back, one of my brothers said that NO BS! was pretty awesome.

Yeah. They are.