FOOLCiRCLE

Karen & I were invited out to dinner on Friday (12.21.07) by our friends Aimee & Jace for Aimee’s birthday.

Jace had received some gift certificates to a restaurant chain Roy’s Restaurant and there was one nearby in Philadelphia. He invited us to join them, their treat, sounds like a good plan to me. I had never heard of Roy’s before so I did what any modern idiot does and googled it. It turns out Roy’s specializes in Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine. I really had no idea what that meant, but it made me think of pineapples, fresh seafood, and the Polynesian from Disney World. After reading all I could on the website, I determined what my initial impressions weren’t off, but it also only appeared to be the tip of the iceberg. It appeared as if we were going to be in for a feast.

Here is what we ordered that I can remember:

• First Course: Sushi & Cocktails
  • Lakanilau Roll - Kobe beef, snow crab, avocado, and asparagus
  • Another Roll with lobster, caviar, and asparagus
  • And a Hawaii Martini each with pineapple, vanilla vodka, and coconut rum
• Second Course: Hot Appetizers
  • Crunchy Golden Lobster Potstickers
  • Kobe beef, jalapeno, and cheese dumplings
  • Vegetable spring rolls
• Third Course: Entries and Wine
  • A bottle of Stump Jump Red (blend: Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre)
  • I had amazing U10 scallops, with fantastic mashed root vegetables, a roasted yellow pepper puree, a small piece of fresh bacon , and a tamarind sauce that I never needed to use.
  • Karen had some sort of fish that actually looked over cooked but tasted OK (the only real negative of the night)
  • Jace had lamb lollipops served rare with an amazing savory bread pudding (this is what I almost ordered)
  • Aimee had a scallop and shrimp combo with rice and micro-greens
• Fourth Course: Dessert & Coffee
  • Hot Chocolate Souffle, a flourless chocolate cake with a hot molten chocolate center
  • Pineapple Upside-down Cake
  • Jace, Aimee, and I got coffees, Karen had a cappuccino and a hazelnut dessert martini

I would recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for a nice place to eat in Philadelphia. I was never able to see the final bill, but I know it wasn’t cheap, maybe $300+ for the four of us. But we were also eating and drinking whatever we wanted knowing that it was mostly covered by gift certificates. Thanks again Aimee & Jace.

So yesterday (12.15.07) Guy had a stout tasting at his house. Fortunately I was available because the beers were not to disappoint.

First I’ll just show and list the beers that were available:

• Oak Aged Imperial Stout (2007)
  Left Hand Brewing Company | Longmont, Colorado
• Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout
  Founders Brewing Company | Grand Rapids, Michigan
• AleSmith Speedway Stout
  AleSmith Brewing Company | San Diego, California
• Bourbon County Stout
  Goose Island | Chicago, Illinois
• Stoudt’s Barrel Aged Fat Dog (Imperial Oatmeal Stout)(2006)
  Stoudts Brewing Co. | Adamstown, Pennsylvania
• Stoudt’s Fat Dog (Imperial Oatmeal Stout)(2006)
  Stoudts Brewing Co. | Adamstown, Pennsylvania
• Jahva (Imperial Coffee Stout)
  Southern Tier Brewing Company | Lakewood, New York
• Cadillac Mtn. Stout
  Bar Harbor Brewing Company | Bar Harbor, Maine
• Dark Lord Imperial Stout (2007)
  Three Floyds Brewing Co. / Brewery & Pub | Munster, Indiana
• Older Viscosity
  The Lost Abbey / Port Brewing Company | San Marcos, California
• Ten FIDY
  Oskar Blues Grill & Brewery | Lyons, Colorado
• Chocolate Indulgence Stout
  Brewery Ommegang | Cooperstown, New York
• Old Rasputin X Anniversary Barrel Aged Stout
  North Coast Brewing Co. | Fort Bragg, California
• Black Sun Stout
  Three Floyds Brewing Co. / Brewery & Pub | Munster, Indiana
• XXX Warlock Double Imperial Stout
  Bristol Brewing Company | Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Bell’s Batch 7000 (2005)
  Bell’s Brewery, Inc. | Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon First Edition
  Nøgne Ø - det kompromissløse bryggeri | Lillesand, Norway
• Olde School Barleywine (2005)
  Dogfish Head Craft Brewery | Milton, Delaware
• SurlyFest
  Surly Brewing Company | Brooklyn Center, Minnesota

Guy broke out some serious cellar meat, I think all of these had to have been traded for and some of these are very rare and sought after. I also brought along a few of the beers, the two Fat Dogs and the Ommegang and another guy from BeerAdvocate brought along the Older Viscosity, the ‘05 Olde School, and the SurlyFest. I think the only beers we didn’t get to last night were the SurlyFest, Jahva, and the Kentucy Breakfast Stout - but please feel free to correct me.

I think my favorite three (they were all good remember) were the Ten FIDY, the Bourbon County Stout, and the Older Viscosity. Some of these beers were just amazing, in particularly being able to try them back-to-back-to-back like we did, it really gave you a perspective on how good some of these beers really were. Ironically it also seemed to point out how much hype there is surrounding some of these beers, especially the Dark Lord. I love this beer, it’s great, I’ve tried the 2005, 06, and 07 versions and they are all amazing, BUT next to some of these other beers . . . you realize there are better Imperial Stouts than the legendary Dark Lord.

Thank you once again Guy, I hope I can return the favor one day.

So Friday (12.14.07) was Sly Fox Brewery’s annual IPA Day event. To say it was ridiculous fun would be an understatement.

See the rest of the pictures from this year here,

and the pictures from 2006 here.

This year it was Mike, Robert, Mitchell, and myself that made the journey. We all wound-up with the day off from work so we decided to meet early for breakfast and head on up to Sly Fox in Pheonixville. We met at my house and I decided to kick-it local style and made pork-roll, egg, and cheese on kaiser buns for breakfast, they were banging. We then hit the pike and went we to Sly Fox arriving around 10:30AM. This year Sly Fox had 15 different IPAs available. Last year they sold it as one giant 15 glass sampler, this year they sold it as three 5 glass flights. I liked the impression of the 15 glasser better, but the 5 glass flights really only made sense. We stayed for quite a while have all three flights each, lunch, and a couple additional pints. The day was wacky in the best sense. We got home maybe around 5PM, that’s some serious IPA dedication. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Feel free to click on the links above to check out the pictures to form your own opinions on what kind of day it was.

Couple weeks ago now (11.09.07) we did it again, another infamous tournament. This time it was the best fictional hero of all time, non-seeded and randomly drawn again.

Click on the image above for a large view.

So, if you regularly frequent this website at all you’ll have realized that this is the third of these style tournaments that Erik, Robert, and myself have done this fall. The first was the Greatest Front-Man of all times and the second was the Greatest Villain of all time. Because the last tournament was the greatest villain we couldn’t resist doing a Greatest Heroes tournament too, so that’s how this one came about. We had a ton of names to start with this time and we had to wean them down to the top 128. Again the names were randomly drawn from a bowl to flush out the brackets, two at a time and then that was the match-up. After the initial 64 match-ups the tournament would run as a normal tournament would, well except for out “nah” rule.

Here’s a re-cap of our “nah” rules in case you haven’t understood them yet; in the first round each of us were given two “power nahs” in which we were able to say “nah” to any match-up that was pulled out of the bowl. If we used a “power nah” then that match-up would be thrown back into the bowl to be re-pulled in a different combination later. This was typically used to keep heavy hitters from going up against each other too early. For example, if Superman and Optimus Prime went up against each other in the first round then someone might use a “power nah” to throw their names back into the bowl so a big decision like that wouldn’t have to be made too early in the game. After the first round each of us was also given two regular “nahs” that could be used in the second, third, and fourth rounds. What these “nahs” did was basically give the loser of a match-up a second chance. The winner of the match-up had to get a 2 out of 3 vote to stay in verses the normal 50/50 chance - make sense?

Now remember, none of us fully agree with this, this is just what happen when the three of us ran this tournament. It would probably be different with any three people and obviously with any random drawing. There were actually a couple really tough match-ups, a couple that some people totally disagreed with, and a couple that I looked at afterwards and thought ‘how did that happen?’ You’ll also notice that this is the first time we’ve really had “teams” or big groups involved which I think totally made some potentially smaller players into big players. Regardless, I’m not going to argue with these results, but I am going to say there were a few surprises. If you don’t recognize some of the names go ahead and ask or look them up yourselves, you may be surprised who did and didn’t make the cut. And just for fun, I’ll include the “Jobbers” bracket too. This is the bracket of guys who didn’t make the initial 120 out of all the names and had to really fight to get one of the last eight spots, whatever. Click on the picture for a larger shot of it.

Enjoy!

Here’s another quick one for you. Last night I went out to Rox’s Bar & Grill to see DC’s band The Kinda Blue Band tear it up for the night-before-Thanksgiving festivities.

Dave’s band was booked once again at Rox’s Bar & Grill in Wilmington, DE by Price’s Corner. Originally I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to go based on the fact that another show I had said I was already going to go to was that night also, that being the Big D Turkey Testicle Music Festival. Well, during the zero hour before the show there was a punt and it was received and we wound up at Rox’s to see The Kinda Blue Band instead. Rox’s is kind of a dive bar type atmosphere that can’t decide how it wants to grow up. Supposedly under it’s old name and management it was know for being a “biker bar” with all the attributes that come from being one. It now has cleaned up its act (or tried) and can’t quite nail down the feel it wants. Is it going to be a bar with pub games (darts/billiards/video slots), a music venue with new and returning bands on a regular schedule, or just let the old crowd back in and return to its roots. To say the least I have mixed emotions about the venue.

But for me, the main three reasons to go last night was to see DC’s band play, to see Karen sing with them (6 songs I think), and to hang with all of my friends who would be up there doing the same. Dave’s band did well and sounded better than last time. Last time Dave’s bongos were either turned up too loud, or everything else was turned down too low. This time they got their sound much more in check. Johnny Z on guitar probably could have still been turned up a little and Dave’s bongo’s probably could have still been turned down a little, but all in all much better sounding. While Karen was up singing she sounded good, but again she was turned down to quiet like last time, but that was remedied by the end of the first song. Once she loosens up on stage a little bit more she is going to be an even better addition when ever the guys ask her to join them. Really the only other complaint I have about the music is that there felt like there were too many long gaps between the songs. Kind of like the band would draw us in and hold our attention for what ever song they were playing then take a minute plus long break in between songs and have to regain our attention. If they could just come up with a tight set list and follow it without to many long pauses (it doesn’t have to be continuous, just not long pauses) I bet they could really rock the crowd. All in all I had a good night out and am not disappointed at all that I missed Big D.

This weekend had the potential to be a diverse beer weekend for me, instead it got off to a rough start and never really started rolling.

On Friday Iron Hill Brewery in Wilmington was hosting one of their Mug Club parties. Essentially these are a way for Iron Hill to show their appreciation to some of their most loyal customers (ie - Mug Club members), and a way for the Mug Club members to come out enjoy Iron Hill in a more intimate way through basically a cooler extended happy hour. I think each location does at least two Mug Club parties per year, and with six locations and number seven on its way, that’s potential to go to a lot of these parties. This time the party was approximately 7-9PM at the Wilmington location. They were doing free 1oz pours of a bunch of their bottled beers which is really cool because they are typically some of their best beers, but at an average of about $18-20 a bottle it’s a little steep to typically buy one. I tried the Oak-aged Quad, 2004 Old Ale, 2005 Old Ale, and the Russian Imperial Stout. They also had three special beers on tap that night, their Bourbon Porter, Oak-aged Fe10, and the Hopkowski. These three beers were $3 a mug (20oz), not bad. They also put out a spread of free appetizers, some bruchetta, nachos, hummus, and wings. And towards the end of the night they had a raffle where they were giving away bottles of beer, gift certificates, dinners for two, and a year membership to the Mug Club - pretty cool. I had the Oak-aged Fe10 which was pretty much the best that I’ve had the Fe10 yet, but a mug was a lot of that beer, a 10ozer would have been better. Then I had a Bourbon Porter, which is one of my all time favorite Iron Hill beers. I decided the wings and nachos were a good idea too, but I should have skipped the sour cream and blue cheese that had been sitting out for at least an hour. I’ll let everyone use their imagination at this point and I’ll just say that something didn’t sit right with me. I barely made it home before my body forcefully evacuated (Tom Jones!?) everything from it’s system that it could. To say the least this put me in bad shape for the next 12-18 hours, not cool. Mug Club party was cool and I had a great time, next time I’m going to skip the white creamy stuff that has been sitting out for public consumption for over an hour. Just a guess, but my bad.

So on Saturday we had plans to go to Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, PA for my brother’s annual birthday celebration. By the time we were getting ready to head up I was just starting to feel “normal” from the night before and the last thing I was thinking about was food and beer, but I didn’t want to miss out and we had already planned on going. Dave has had his birthday get together at Victory for the past seven years or so I would guess and I would have to say that this was one of my favorite times so far. Originally when he was trying to make reservations Victory informed him that they do not take reservations for Friday or Saturday any longer regardless of the size of the party. I’ve seen Dave’s table size grow into the 15+ numbers so I was worried that we would be waiting for a table all night, but fortunately the table size this year was only 10 and Dave went down early to try and secure a spot and everything seemed to work out just fine. I enjoyed a cask-conditioned Storm King Stout and a Hop Wallop along with my chicken Caesar salad while I was there. The Storm King was perfect, right were I was at, the Hop Wallop was a little too much last night, but I finished it all the same. Overall it was a pretty positive experience. I often have issues when we go to Victory for one thing or another especially Dave’s gatherings, but this time was probably one of the better times. Victory felt less crowded, the wait for food felt shorter than in the past, the waitress was relatively attentive, there were only 10 of us versus the monster group, the noise level in Victory seemed much better (Dave pointed out they put noise dampeners in the ceiling), no headaches from the beer (some reason beers on tap at Victory almost always give me a headache), and we left before we ran into the typical “there isn’t enough money for the bill” fiasco. So as of now, I am looking forward to my next Victory experience.

Last weekend (10/12-14/07) Karen and I went up to Rhode Island to visit her brother and his family for they were Baptizing their fourth child, Christopher. So, since we were going to be there for the whole weekend I looked into what good “beer things” there were to do in the area.

I found three things I was interested in the very near area, all less than five miles from their house. There was a brewery, Coastal Extreme Brewery (CEB), a brewpub, Coddington Brewpub, and a winery, Newport Vineyards. I got to visit two out of the three, the winery’s tour schedule didn’t fit our time-frame, but we kind of knew that from the get go. I visited the CEB on Friday night. They do a tour and tasting every Friday night @ 6PM limited to 75 people. I got to the brewery about 5:30PM and there were only 4 other people there, when they opened the doors at 6 there were maybe 30 of us there. The deal is you get the tour (about 45 minutes), a pint glass, and a full pint “taste” of everything they have on tap (typically 4 beers) for $5, sounds like one hell of a happy hour to me. Plus on top of that they have reasonably priced growlers (one of my pet peeves), $10 for new jugs and a fill or $5 for just a refill, plus they filled growlers from other breweries too.

The tour was pretty typical as far as brewery tours go. It was given by one of the four owners, Brent, and lasted about 45 minutes. He started by pouring us all a beer, there Blueberry beer (the crowd favorite), and then got on with his spiel. It was very typical in the sense of he went over the ingredients used to make beer, the equipment they use to make beer, and the general brewing process. It was interesting that after eight years it seems as if they still run things about the same as they originally did. There equipment is small, all used brewpub equipment, but it appears as if they max it out. They also have a hand bottler and hand canner. The bottler does a case at a time (I think) and the canner does two cans at a time. They sell their bottles in RI, MA, and CT with like 75% of their sales in RI. They only can one beer and just for the summer time, luckily for them. After the tour was the tasting, they had the Blueberry, their Summer seasonal an IPA, their Winter seasonal a Porter, and a test batch which was an Irish Stout. All four were pretty good, I think the Porter was my favorite though. Before I left of course I got some growler fills, and of course I brought my own. I brought four growlers and got one of each beer, now all I need is some help drinking them all. Later the next day I stopped at a package store and bout two more of their beers they didn’t have, Frank and Gloria from their Cyclone series, a White and Pumpkin respectively. Overall I’d say these guys are a solid contribution to Rhode Island.

Saturday we had a lot of family stuff to do so I wasn’t even going to push the stop at Coddington Brewpub, but I figured it was worth inquiring about. So on the way back to the hotel at 10:30PM I asked if Karen would be interested in stopping, she wasn’t really but she decided to take us anyway. All I really wanted was the sampler, just to get a taste of their beers. Well, their sampler was eight 7oz. servings for $8, almost four pints for $8, geez these guys from RI do craft beer cheap on location. Anyway, in the sampler was a Gold, Amber, Blueberry, IPA, Pumpkin, Oktoberfest, Nut Brown, and a Stout. All of the beers were decent, but none of them were exceptional. The Gold actually was a little rough, it was way to grainy (not malty, grainy). My favorites were the IPA and Stout, go figure. Also, what’s up with New England and blueberries in their beer? This was the third New England brewery where they had a blueberry beer: here, CEB, and Sea Dog Brewing Co. in ME when I got to try it for the first time like 5 years ago from a trip to ME from Robert.

Overall it was a good trip, both family and beer-wise. I have to give thanks to BeerAdvocate for helping me out with ideas for stops in Rhode Island thanks to this thread I started.

Last Thursday (10-11-07) I went down to see moe. play at Ram’s Head Live! in Baltimore, MD. My night didn’t go quite as planned, but I had a great time all the same.

Originally I was supposed to go to the moe. show with five other people. The guy who bought the tickets wound up with an extra and asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in going the day of the show. My buddy Mike volunteered and seemed excited to go. Kind of unexpectedly the people I was originally supposed to go down with suddenly decided they were going to leave two hours earlier than originally planned and I was on my own. At first I was bent out of shape, but the more I thought about it the more it became to my advantage. I figured I didn’t have to work on their time-frame (they are notorious for leaving shows early) and I got to enjoy the show with Mike instead of being pulled between two different groups.

The show was pretty good, I can barely remember the last time I saw moe. (maybe 1/20-21/06), it seems so long ago, anyone care to remind me? I found a copy of the show already on archive.org, so you can listen to it or download it if your interested. Anyway, here’s the setlist:

Set I: Shoot First> Tailspin, Stranger Than Fiction> Time Again, Faker> Head
Set II: The Ghost Of Ralph’s Mom> Wormwood> The Ghost Of Ralph’s Mom, Water> Kids, Sensory Deprivation Bank> Down Boy> Recreational Chemistry
Encore: Akimbo

I had a blow out on the way home too. It was about 3:30AM on my way home on 495 and I was on the phone with the DJ from WMMR because I just called in and won a package of Eric Clapton stuff, and as I was talking to him the belts in my drivers side front tire blew. I got out and checked and the tire wasn’t flat, the belts had just busted through. So I decided to drive at about 30MPH the last five miles home. It was bizarre.

Yesterday was this years Kennett Square (KSQ) Brewfest. Per usual it is an event that I highly anticipate. Also, as always, this events has its good points and bad points, none of them ever too horrible.

This year I went up with Jody, Karen, and myself and we met up with Ann, Richard, and Cat. We got there basically right at 2:00 (when it started) and didn’t have any real problems finding parking or getting right in line and filing in. One of the six of us bought a designated driver ticket and was still given a cup for beer, go figure!

Initially I was on the hunt to try and find any of the beers from the connoisseurs tasting that the breweries may still have left over. I was lucky and got to try a few: Clipper City’s Weizen Dopplebock, Weyerbacher’s Quad (originally they were bringing their 12th Anniversary ale, drat!) Stewart’s 2005 Bourbon Barleywine, Iron Hill’s Russian Imperial Stout, Sprague Farm’s Effin’ Beer, and Southampton Brewey’s Grand Cru. So I guess I got to try maybe about a third of the beers from the connoisseurs tasting, which is about average with previous years, often if they have any left you have to know to ask for it though. This year the KSQ people in charge did a great job making sure there were plenty of port-a-potties, I don’t think I ever saw a line that was more than 5 people deep, versus last year where I’d have said 20+ people deep at some of them. They also did a bang-up job at bringing in more food, same stuff as last year plus I think two new BBQ pits were brought in, yummy! Two downsides that I noticed though (which happens all the time) were they supplied free bottles of water, very smart move, but they ran out of water with problably two hours still to go in the event, not good. Also, I’m not sure if the KSQ people in charge are getting greedy or what, but to me it felt way over sold this year. The lines were redunkulously long, especially on the far side where they had breweries lining both side of the aisle. Seriously it was a good ten minute wait to get from the back of the line to the front of the line for some of the breweries, maybe longer. Though I still got to sample my fair share of beers, I would have rather sampled them closer to my own pace. Favorite beers of the day I’d have to say were Arrogant Bastard from Stone brewery, Hoptimus Prime from Legacy (I think), and The 2005 Bourbon Barleywine from Stewart’s. Hands down least favorite beer, 60 Minute IPA from DFH. Typically one of my favorites, but that beer was infected with something nasty!

After the fest this year we went out to dinner again, but we totally avoided the Half Moon this time to hopefully avoid any fiascoes.  This time we went to a local place called El Ranchero which we discovered was one of two Mexican restaurants in Kennett Square. This was the more authentic restaurant (think menu written in Spanish first and English second) where the local Mexican population choose to eat versus the other is Mexican-style food served for everyone else (think La Tolteca probably). Some of the crew we were with seemed a little shady going in at first, but I think overall everyone really enjoyed their food. A little side note, Jody ordered this crazy torta (sandwich) that had everything on it; eggs, beef, ham, hotdogs, french fies, pickles, hot peppers - freakin’ everything.

After dinner things basically wrapped up and people went their own way. Overall I’d say it was a good time once again and am looking forward to next year already.

I know it has been a while since I posted and I have a ton of things I want to talk about, but this one couldn’t be avoided. On Saturday was the 3rd Annual Dogfish Head Intergalactic Bocce Tournament. This has got to be the single greatest beer event in this area. Unfortunately it is an invitation only event, but we found a way to be invited this year!

Click here to see more off-centered pictures from this off-centered weekend.

I’ll try not to be too long winded, it really is a blast but it’s also kind of hard to fully understand unless you experience it. Anyway, last year Robert and I went down to the Bocce Tournament uninvited not to pry our way in but just to see if it was possible for us to hang out and see what was going on. Fortunately we ran into a friend who worked for the brewery which made it less awkward, then we were actually invited to stay and hang out for the afternoon by none other than the president of the company Sam. Well, we couldn’t argue with that, and it was a complete blast.

So, because of going last year I have been keeping tabs on when the tournament was going to be this year. I really wanted to start a team/join a team, but DFH always invites the teams from the previous years before they open it up for new teams. Supposedly every team (16 teams) from the first year have come back each year after, thus never creating an open slot. I am now officially on the waiting list with over 1,500 other people. By a chance of bad luck I missed signing up the first year because of a wedding that I wanted to attend, oh well. Since there was no way to start a team Robert and I wanted to figure out a way to attend again, so I had the idea that we could ask if they were interested in having a band play and offer that the Erik Mitchell Band could play the Bocce Tournament.

So basically the idea sank in with the Erik Mitchell Band and Robert pursued it with the lady in charge of the tournament. Basically DFH thought it sounded like a good idea and things were in motion. The band, Erik, Robert and Corey, were booked to play about four one hour sets during the afternoon on Saturday. And fortunately they wanted to include me so I became ‘the guy who could get a van to haul their equipment around’/roadie and was included open-armly by both the band and DFH into the festivities. Originally the band assumed they would play outside by the bocce courts, but later found out that DFH wanted them to set-up inside away from things because of some questions about permits. I believe to everyone’s luck the band was able to talk the powers that be into letting them perform outside instead.

The day was great, most of the teams got dressed up to represent there themes, the weather was fantastic, the band sounded good and looked like they were having fun, and it seemed like everyone involved with the tournament enjoyed the new edition. Really overall there wasn’t much I would have changed: the gratuity from DFH, the great people I got to meet (Nacho Libre, John Deer Flava Flav, Kid Rock, Real Fake Tits, NERDS!, Super Ref, Harry-Ass Lesbian Nerds in Jail, Jason & Todd Alstrom, Crotch Rot Lunch Box, Midas Touch My Balls, Mama’s Roast Beef, Motley Brew Jew) the idiots I went down with and got to hang out with (Hannibal, Faceman, and Howling Mad Murdock) , and all the stoopid fun we had!

Here’s a little snippet of the guys playing “Easy to Love You” during the tournament with a special lyric thrown in just for the tournament. Mitchell was actually pretty good about throwing in a lot of references in the sets to what was going on which was quite entertaining. Plus there was the third set impromptu “Bocce Song” opener which was quite smart and funny.

Anyway, I’m hoping they decide to invite the band back again next year, for me, it was great. And hopefully this will also give them the opportunity to play at the brew pub sometime, that would be great too.