Last night I went to see one of my favorite bands, Electric Six, at Dante’s in Portland on Burnside Avenue. They played a fun show and the band sounded great (my ears are still ringing). Here is their iconic singer “Dick Valentine” on stage. The band delivers hilarious onstage banter and are highly recommended. The crowd at Dante’s was also great and everyone seemed to be in good spirits.
Dan and I went to see Electric Six in Wisconsin with the Chicago band Local H opening up for them back in October 2008 (I was able to correlate the dates when both bands were at the same venue). Those were the days before Uber so we had to keep it together since we were driving. It was a great show, too, and I remember that we met someone who knew Electric Six and asked if we wanted to go backstage and party and we were like “Nope”. That was likely a wise decision. After Local H finished their main singer / guitarist was having beers at the bar while Electric Six was up on stage. I also saw Electric Six back in the Double Door in Chicago at a New Years’ show and I was wearing a crazy disco ball shirt and Dick Valentine gave me a “nice shirt” comment. So that’s my brush with fame.
PBR is an iconic beer here in Portland (Portland led the resurgence of Pabst) and they have their own festival and the best place for advertising is right on the can.
Before the show I was at the Driftwood Inn in Portland getting ready and had a flight of mini-Manhattans. It was excellent. They had to choose which mini glass got the cherry. Four cherries is apparently too many.
Cross posted at LITGM
Brah, ear plugs. Sounds like fun anyway.
I’m not familiar with Electric Six, sad to say, but I do recall seeing Local H perform at one of those west side bars, way back when. I believe it was Halloween or something. It struck me as a situation where the guy was really a solo act, but for whatever reason – perhaps he felt more comfortable or it gave him more legitimacy – he called himself a band. That’s the case to a certain degree with a lot of groups. There is one overwhelmingly talented member who writes and sings all the songs and produces all the music while the other members fill out the support roles. Eventually the inevitable happens, and the top member goes solo.
It looks like in the case of your group, Mr. Valentine is content to keep the enterprise going. Good for him and the fans.
And speaking of stalwarts, PBR’s association as a post-modern artifact must be at least three decades old. There’s a lesson there for industrialism in general.