Courtesy of Brad Hodge

The room was practically empty when the Bobby Lee Rodgers (above)/ Jeff Sipe Project played.

Sunday night at Kirk Avenue Music Hall proved that Roanoke can handle only so much entertainment.

Last week was a bottleneck of good shows with good to decent crowds -- Willie Nelson with Asleep at the Wheel on Tuesday, David Wilcox with Andrew Gregory on Thursday, The Bastards of Fate with Kid A on Friday, John Prine on Saturday. There was only one sellout: Wilcox at Kirk Avenue.

On Sunday in the same place, the Bobby Lee Rodgers/Jeff Sipe Project played a brilliant set of jazz-rock music, but the 140-capacity room was practically empty. Aside from people traveling with the band, people working in the facility and myself, there was one other person there.

One.

That was hip-hop artist Toni Blackman, who is in town for workshops and shows that culminate Friday at Jefferson Center. Blackman, by the way, said she really liked the show.

It was depressing to walk in and see no one there, for a couple of reasons.

First, I've been in bands that drew poorly out of town, but I was never in a band that sounded this amazing but played to no one.

Guitarist/singer Rodgers and drummer Sipe are among the finest musicians anywhere, and the guys who rounded out the band -- guitarist/singer Charles Hedgepath and bassist Shannon Hoover -- were on it, too.

Second, I know there are a lot of people around here who would've loved the show. The group's set-ending version of the jazz classic "Caravan" was by itself worth the $16 admission.

Rodgers ripped it up with his six-string banjo, while Hoover and Sipe were locked in on the Afro-Cuban groove -- Sipe played the last of several deeply musical yet chops-tastic solos on that one.

But again, Roanoke can only handle so much entertainment. And there was, dare I say it, too much going on over the past few days for a town this size.

The band was up against cold, the economy and Oscars

The Marginal Arts Festival, which The Bastards of Fate and Kid A kicked off Feb. 20 with a packed concert on the Roanoke Library's second floor, ran until Tuesday, with events all over the place. But its Sunday night opera at the Dumas Center was poorly attended, too.

As a friend of mine pointed out, there were things on television on Sunday night. NASCAR drivers were doing the 360-degree repeat. The Academy Awards were on, with lots of people surely curious to see if Heath Ledger would win a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker (he did).

And of course, we can't forget the economy, combined with the late February chill on a work night. Maybe everyone was "cold, broke and tired," said Heather Krantz of DLP Concerts, which presented the concert.

But the band was great about it, even beforehand. Backstage, Sipe joked that they should just change the act to a Dave Matthews Band tribute. Road manager Matt Jennings went a step further, suggesting it become a tribute to a Dave Matthews Band tribute act.

Ultimately, I think it was bad timing for a group of brilliant players who, as Sipe noted later, don't exactly have name recognition for their new project. But they're not the new kids on the scene by any stretch. Both Sipe and Rodgers have worked with Col. Bruce Hampton in the Aquarium Rescue Unit. Rodgers played with Hampton in the Code Talkers. Sipe has toured with Susan Tedeschi, and recently he toured and recorded as part of Keller Williams with Moseley, Droll and Sipe.

Meanwhile, I'm still bummed out at the fact that I had to miss what I hear was a good Friday night show at Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill.

Blue Ridge Dub Alliance played its first-ever gig that night, and drummer George Penn said that he and the band "had a freakin' blast." I'm sure that act, which features Bobby Thompson of Junior Marvin's band, will be back on stage soon.

I also missed Jamie McLean -- again -- at Blue 5.

If you caught a show you loved over the past few days, head over to my blog at blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/cutnscratch and tell me about it.

And let's hope that next time such a worthy act hits Big Lick, the room will be packed. Rodgers and Sipe deserved better.