OK, kids. I’m writing this at 9 p.m. the night before the deadline, during what has been by far the craziest week of the semester. I have hours of work ahead of me, I haven’t gotten more than four hours of sleep in several days and I have no idea what to write about. It’s times like this that are liable to send you one of two ways musically: to something über-über depressing or to insane death metal that you can scream “F— YOU CORNELL” along to.

My friend thinks I should write about the Tuva Throat Singers, and tell you that I thought of it because it’s windy in Tuva and it’s windy in Ithaca in October. I’m thinking: maybe not. Other suggestions include jazz music, my high school fight song or walruses. If you would like to see one of these topics addressed in 76 Trombones, please feel free to put it on a giant banner and get a charter plane to fly it over Ithaca. You are most likely to catch me staring at the sky around 3 a.m.

It is now 9:14. I wonder, could I just write every paragraph about what is going on around me? No, probably not. There’s very little going on around me. 9:18. Problem solved. I know what to write about! I’m sure many of you are familiar with the GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance that goes down in my humble hometown (Ithaca) every summer. My world was rocked at GrassRoots this year. Not because of the secondhand high wafting off the guy behind me. And the chick in front of me. And the old dude in a wheelchair two people to the left. Nay, not by them. It was Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings who rocked my world.

The stage was set big band style, but not many of us really knew what to expect. I didn’t even know what kind of music they were going to play. An m.c. in a 40s-era tailored suit, complete with suspenders and fedora, comes out swinging and fast-talking, getting everybody riled up. Then Sharon Jones runs out in a black, fringed flapper dress and the show goes absolutely insane. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got was most certainly thirty or forty bajillion times better (math majors: take that).

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are classic funk ’n soul, with both original tracks and covers of such staples as “What Condition my Condition Was In” and “Uptight (Everything is Alright).” With somewhere between eight and 10 band members on stage all movin’ and groovin’ the sound is irresistibly energetic, and quite literally requires dancing. I defy you not to. Everyone, and I mean every single person in a soccer-pitch sized field, was shaking their groove-thang with Sharon Jones.

Sharon Jones herself puts on a live show unlike many others. She moved all around the stage, danced the ”boogaloo” for us, and called various members of the audience up onstage to accompany her and / or bust a move. She was articulate and funny, and her crazy flapper dress just made it so authentic — I was sure we were heading back to the future, or whatever. Straight to the height of funk and soul, when Sharon Jones was growing up in the same town as Mr. James Brown. The whole show vibe just made you happy. I grinned the entire time. The surrounding stoners cackled. I’m not actually kidding. The dude behind me laughed for 45 straight minutes.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have released a number of laudable records, though I insist that if you like the records, your face will be melted even more by the live show. They also (fun fact) are featured on six of the 11 tracks, including “Rehab,” from Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. And, if you’re interested in sound recording, etc., Daptone Records founder Gabriel Roth is supposed to be a genius analogue producer. My boyfriend studies sound recording at McGill University — he would be proud of that sentence, because my other recording knowledge is limited to lugging around drum sets and coiling cable, which, according to the sound guy who addressed me as “the 22-year-old chica” at the They Might Be Giants show last week, I’ve been doing wrong anyway. In any case people, moral of the story is that you haven’t lived until you’ve danced your ass off squished between stoners at a small-town fairgrounds to the powerful, passionate and fiery tunes of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. They’ve been around Ithaca several times before, and they’re bound to be back, so, until then, keep it funky, ya’ll.