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Meanwhile, back at the Columbia festival, the rain has finally stopped. The band takes the stage to a massive roar from the crowd, a Beatles in Liverpool, U2 in Dublin, Nirvana in Seattle hometown roar. With abandon, joy and a little bit of out-of-practice sloppiness, they tear through some old songs--Hannah Jane, Let Her Cry and Time--as well as a couple of the new numbers, Sad Caper and Be the One. Rucker screams his way through that last one, pulling and pawing at his shirt as if he's about to come out of it. He howls, "See it's not like they/ Are gonna take my faith away."
Afterward the band is giddy with excitement, exchanging bear hugs and high-fives. But as the others celebrate, Rucker just sits smiling, his baby in his arms, looking satisfied. Who cares if some critics, after seeing a white band with a black singer out front, conclude that somebody somewhere must be selling someone out? What does it matter if some people take the band's collegiate, party-hearty Southern past to mean that its music must have as much intrinsic worth as a Confederate bank note? Every time Rucker opens his mouth and his booming baritone roars out, strong, sure, suffused with history and hidden hurt, it overwhelms the doubts. Nobody is going to take this band's faith away.
--With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York and Lisa H. Towle/Columbia