Last night, I went to First Avenue for the Tribute to the Replacements show celebrating the 25th anniversary of Tim. The ‘mats, disbanded in 1991. I saw them a few times growing up and collected all their LPs like most avid Twin City fans. Last night’s show (an annual event) was a lot like the shows I remember – loud, disorderly, and pretty undecipherable.
Actually, the lyrics were pretty clear — no drink induced slurring — and passionate. I just wish I knew who the bands were. They all announced themselves when the took the stage, but the only band I could understand was the Honey Dogs. And I had already recognized Adam Levy, anyway.
The crowd looked a lot like me — people who had been to a lot of shows and now wisely wore ear plugs. Ear plugs are great to protect your ears from pounding base beats emanating 3 feet in front of you, but they make mumbles all the harder to understand.
Being totally out of touch with current bands — I seem to hit a lot of old favorites (the Jayhawks, Semisonic, Trip Shakespeare etc) now that I’m back in town– I thought I was hearing Babes in Toyland, only to discover this morning it was Pink Mink I enjoyed so much.
So what to do? First Ave already does a great job of marketing themselves virtually (Twitter, Facebook, and a super-robust website) and in the club with multiple screens publishing related Twitter feeds (sorry, I keep forgetting to take a photo of that). But the bands? Many have great websites, but that doesn’t help in the Main Room.
UPDATE: Here is the link to the City Pages review if you want to read about how awesome the music was and see the set list!
Sara Kerr 