First Ave Anniversary Show

Did I just see Craig Finn (of the Hold Steady) sing I Wanna Be Your Dog with Mike Watt on bass? I believe I did. Did I also see Grant Hart later join them on stage and play a mean keyboard? Yes I think I saw that too.

I got there just before Jesse Greene who does a great job filling a larger stage. I like her voice and she of course has her mean violin. The X-Boys featured quite a few guys from the Suburbs and Chris Osgood from the Suicide Commandos. Pretty fun jammy set. I hear they play together almost every week at a VFW somewhere. I'm going to have to check that out.

Most of my evening was spent in the Entry which seemed like a competition of great guitar players. It was truely inspiring. Ernie of the Mofos, Gerard of Rifle Sport and Curtiss and Vern. The guitar playing was simply phenomonal. The Mighty Mofos as always rocked my socks off. I don't know if you've seen a bigger grin on my face then when I talked to Ernie Batson about it afterwards (well other than that whole bus, head scratching incident in Orlando). Love the Batson brothers, and Randy is one hell of a bass player. Next up was Rifle Sport. Awesome kind of melodic punk. I don't know how I'll go through a Christmas season again without hearing that band play Little Drummer Boy. Was really really cool. And then Curtiss A, doing a lot of his Beatles tunes and a Stones tune, him and Vern just tore apart their guitars.

Back to the mainroom for Mike Watt. The set was only a few songs but all star. See comments above about Grant Hart and Craig Finn. I prefer Watt in the Entry but this was a good time. The Koalas headlined and by that point there was no one around. No band wanted that slot but the Koalas did better on the big stage then I thought they would. And as usual Lori's drumming was stellar.