When I first heard of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and saw the picture above, I thought "Is this some ironic hipster bullshit? I don't care if the guy from The Silent Years is involved, I'm gonna pass". I guess I missed out on the chance to be the obnoxious snooty indie guy who liked every band before you even know about them. Recently I came across a link to a music video for their song "Nothing But Our Love", and I took the song title to mean that their music isn't all redneck jokes. While the video still contains the campy NASCAR stuff, finding out that the songs don't, caused my me to change my mind about them. Although I'm sure some people will insist that I waited for someone from Chicago or Los Angeles to tell me otherwise. (It couldn't possibly be that the band's consistent efforts and promotions caused me to rethink my prior dismissal)
Prussia was first on the bill. They were 45 minutes late starting, in keeping with their tradition of unnecessarily making the whole show run late when they're the first band on. Next was Danny Brown, who I had never heard of before. Turns out it's a rap act. An odd choice to group in with the other two bands, but whatever.
Before the headliner came out, I noticed that the place seemed to be about 90% full. There was still room to move around near the sound booth and up in the balcony, but overall it was clear that DEJJ drew a respectfully large showing.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. first came out on stage in the NASCAR outfits, but after a few seconds they took them off to reveal that they were wearing suits underneath. I guess even they get tired of the NASCAR schtick. At one point they invited their "skeleton choir", a group of people (some of them recognizable local musicians) wearing skeleton masks to come up onto the stage and sing with the band for one of the songs. For their encore, they did Morning Thought as a bunch of balloons were released from the balcony. I definitely have to call Morning Thought my favorite DEJJ song, and not just because of the balloons, or the fact that the song is being given away as a free download.