John Prine Birthday Celebration at Hook and Ladder

On October 13, I went to the John Prine Birthday celebration at Hook and Ladder near the burned out precinct. Holy bleep was it cold.  It was their last outdoor event of the year.  This isn't long before things get going.  There was a point where I was out there alone with my beer.  Don't worry.  John Prine can't be kept down [or those covering him].  There were still a lot of empty seats later, but partially because a lot of people were standing to keep warm, or rotating inside to keep warm.

Yeah....it was cold and it was wet.  There was a lot of rain.  I wasn't entirely sure what they meant by my reserved seat was under a cover.  I was pleasantly surprised it was rainproof.

They opened up the inside space and pointed a camera at the stage.  There were a lot of people in the chairs to the sides and over by the bar area.  Funny to watch a concert on a screen that's happening all of fifty feet away.

I love this Rogue Citizen posters that went up after the protests. I have a very nice photo of me with my bicycle near the two on the outside wall that I use for profile photos and get to know me write ups.

Second of the internal courtyard posters, this one with GPF.

I don't know why they have this corner kid in the courtyard.  I'm trying to figure out why Jack Daniels felt this was a good promotional item.  I think it makes it look like the white guy in the courtyard is studiously looking away from the BLM posters.

There were ten? cover bands?  Each did two songs and a big get together at the end, with some overlap here and there. This young lady stripped down to her spring dress once she got warmed up. I think that's Leslie Vincent.

Per Hook and Ladder: "The Hook & Ladder Theater is pleased to host the 14th Annual Big Fat Love show, celebrating what would have been the late John Prine’s 77th birthday. The popular event is curated and hosted by Ben Cook-Feltz & KFAI’s Ellen Stanley (a.k.a. Mother Banjo) and features a “Who’s Who” lineup of regional artists, including Becky Schlegel, John Magnuson, Katey Bellville, Jon Rodine, Leslie Vincent, Art Vandalay, Dan Gaarder, Cathy ‘n Abel & more!" 

Here's Katey Belville singing from her FB page...I've never embedded from FB before...guess we'll see if it works.  If not, here's a link to her FB post: https://fb.watch/o5elPf2VeP/

 

Couple of shots of the various performers.

It was no small event.  Although the guitars might have outnumbered the audience by the very end.  Folks got extremely cold by 9 p.m.  I stuck it out because I was enjoying it immensely.  I would have had more fun with Kyle there, but I talked him out of going because he would have had to drive from 50 miles away into the cities, and the rain earlier was insanity. I thought he might end up driving for two hours one way.  Ironically, Ben [who went on the MS rides with me] was there with his wife, brother, and sister in law, from literally a few miles from Kyle's place.  Doh.

Saw Tim there as well, who I used to work with at Thomson Reuters when we were on the Lawschool team together.

The final "all bands" act.  That's Becky Schlegel in the middle.  My wife and I saw her perform at the 318 in Excelsior with Sarah Morris.  I'm catching enough of the local music scene that I get overlap.  That's fun. I was almost expecting to see Sarah there as she does a cover of George Strait doing a cover of John Prine doing "I Just Want to Dance With You".  Someone else covered that one.  They all were forced to submit options to ensure there were no duplicates.  A great time.

Busy Weekend

Wow...very busy weekend.  

On Friday, I got a hankering for a banana split.  I could have gone to the DQ, but a DQ banana split is the very bottom of my banana split ranking.  I'd rather try something I know nothing about and take the chance I'm not getting ice milk with oversugared toppings.  So we [Poot and I] went to Dar's Double Scoop in St. Paul.  Very enjoyable and delicious...under that mess of toppings is coconut and two kinds of chocolate ice cream.  It's smaller than some banana splits I've had, but let's be honest, it's incredibly reasonable and the price was really good and I don't need a banana split twice that size.  It's always too much anyway.

I liked their sculpture.  Here's Poot posing.  No need to do a mask version outside.

I did think this in the back where the BBQ joint [smelled SO good] and bathrooms were was pretty funny.  They didn't label the actual exit nearly as well.

 

On Saturday, we went to Aguirre the Wrath of God with K and L at the Trylon.  We hit Merlin's Rest for dill pickle soup, drinks, and fish and chips, and pasties first. I tried to convince my niece she should drive over to join us as she has a brand new license.

Aguirre was wonderful.  The scenes where he tromps around the boat dealing with monkeys and proclaims he will have a new kingdom and his rebellion against Spain to found said kingdom while everyone dies on the journey was surreal.  I'm looking forward to some of the other movies in the Warner Herzog series at the Trylon.

And last night, Poot and I went up to the Hook and Ladder to see Jill Sobule.  We stopped at Arbeiter Brewing first.  This photo isn't from last night, but it's from not so long ago when we went up specifically to catch the opening of the collaboration with Venn Brewing, Collider.  At 9.3% that stuff is heavy.  I'm headed up to find some in a growler tomorrow for my neighbor, as well as pick up a book at Moon Palace.

The Hook and Ladder was excellent for covid protection.  Masks and proof of vaccination. Not to mention the space isn't so huge you're swamped in people

The opening act was the Jorgensen Duo. Poot liked them enough to go chat and pick up an album.

Jill Sobule was hilarious.  Lot of hard core fans in the audience.  She started off with a fuck Aaron Rodgers and then told stories about songs she'd played while she was in the middle of brain surgery [including I kissed a girl].  Poot and I helped crowdfund her brain surgery, so those were cool stories.

She's brilliant on her instrument.  I liked the part where she launched into a little Jimi Hendrik riff in the middle of a not so hard core song.