River Roots Live

Well the Cubs kick off a 4-game series against Cincinnati today as they've hit the home stretch on their quest for 100 losses. They'll need to lose their final 9 games to achieve that mark, but I think they're capable. You gotta believe!

Anyway, with the Cubs season about to officially float away on its turd vessel, I will be focusing my time this weekend to other things, most importantly the River Roots Live Music Fest. River Roots Live is a musical festival held in Davenport on the banks of the Mississippi River. This is the second year they've held it, and the big headlining act is the Black Crowes. The rest of the acts aren't as familiar to most people but they do have a pretty eclectic lineup of bands. Here's a list of all of them.

Friday September 22nd
Girlyman
The Nadas
Junior Brown
Lil' Brian and the Zydeco Travellers
Martin Sexton
Bo Ramsey
Susan Tedeschi

Saturday September 23rd
Family Groove Company
Sunnywheat
Scott H. Biram
Ernie Hendrickson and the Make Believe
The Gourds
Groovatron
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk
Hackensaw Boys
Umphrey's McGee
Alejandro Escovedo
Black Crowes

Now I can honestly say I've head of 7 artists on that list. So we'll see how good it ends up being. It seems though that they've got some pretty talented groups lined up. A lot of folk, jam bands, and Americana from the looks of it. Its no Bonnaroo or Austin City Limits, but for an area that usually only draws the big corporate arena tours that usually involve no talent acts, (Rascal Flatts, Hoobastank, etc.) it's nice to see something like this possibly taking off. Hopefully in coming years they'll bring in bigger acts. It'd be cool to see some bands like Wilco, Kings of Leon or the Black Keys come to this. I'll report back next week on my experience.

One band I'm interested in seeing is the Gourds. Some of you may know them for their silly yet jamming cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice". It was a pretty popular download back during the Napster Days, a lot of the time falsely listed as Phish being the band that did it. Nothing like hearing the lyrics, "Dr. Dre got some bitches from the City of Compton!" belted out in a twangy country voice with a mandolin playing in the background. If they don't play it I'll be severely pissed.

One thing I know for sure is that it'll be wet. Our forecast for the next two days calls for rain with some drizzle along with a chance of showers. I wonder what its like to be deaf, hungover and have pneumonia? I guess we'll find out.