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Yams after party at Champs | Courtesy Scott Dickens

Back in a past life, I was a drummer who toured around the indie-rock Chitlin' Circuit with a couple of different bands. I used to see flyers for a band called The Yams from Outer Space. Good name, I thought -- can the band back it up with the tunes?

People back home in Johnson City, Tenn., told me "yes!" The Yams played The Casbah, by East Tennessee State University, a few times, and folks raved. I never got to see them, though, because I was always out on a gig of my own.

In my years up here, I've gotten to know and respect bassist Dylan Locke and drumer George Penn, Jr., a couple of guys from that long broken-up band. And recently, we did a podcast with guitarist/singer/bovine costume wearer Mike Kirby. Kirby is a funny, affable dude who just happens to be a smoking guitar player.

Now, finally, I have seen the band, and I have to say that it hasn't lost much, if anything, since its heyday of a decade ago.

Kirby, not a small man, was decked out in the full piebald cow regalia. Even on a relatively cool night in Blacksburg, that suit had to be 120 degrees inside. And he started out wearing white gloves while playing. Kirby shed the "hooves" after one tune, though, and proceeded to do some wickedly tasteful funk-metal shredding.

The whole band -- Locke, Penn Jr., Kirby, Mark Gibson (guitar), Jeff Pertchick (Rhodes Seventy-Three electric piano. Accept no substitute), and sax men Chris Given (vocals) and Gary Everett -- is hot, musically. Vocally, it's just a little weak, with Kirby specializing in party-starting yowls and Given doing the blue-eyed funk thing. But really, a Yams show is about the music first.

Yams busted out originals such as "Let Me Know" and set-closing "Du Ewe," both greasy-fingered stomps that had a crowd-choked College Street bouncing while Kirby broke out some Vernon Reid-flavored riffs. Locke and Penn were so tight, and it was great to hear both of them in this context, all funky and syncopated. And Penn is a helluva toastmaster/hype man behind the kit.

The covers were a hoot, too. Earth, Wind & Fire's "Shining Star" was a groove, as was Average White Band's "Cut the Cake." The band leaned on a P-Funk/James Brown style jam that climaxed with Maceo Parker's "Shake Everything You Got" and Parliament's "Dr. Funkenstein." It shuffled through Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain," with an interlude of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," and it breezed easy on Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number."

And true to the Yam's freak-rock fashion, it busted out a punk rock version of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," with Kirby in full scream mode. Introducing the song, Kirby told the crowd that his mother sang this one to him when he was "just a little girl, sitting on my mother's knee."

Penn said: "I love you, Mike." Kirby replied likewise.

After the show, Locke said that the band was pretty loose in spots. He's so hard! But after all those years away and just a few rehearsals, it was a worthwhile performance, and one that made me nostalgic for a time I never had. Penn's father, George Penn, Sr., came up on stage late in the set and asked the crowd: "Shouldn't this band stay together? Will you support the Yams?"

The crowd answered those questions with enthusiastic whoops and hollers. It's obvious that there is a chasm in the valleys for a band this musically hot and energetic.

Given that everyone in the band moved on years ago and has other things going on, it's unlikely we'll see them more often than every two-to-three years or so. But I'll take that over nothing.