Lord, I am Old...

It's 3:30 AM in the morning. Grammatical errors do not count after 1:30 AM as I recall.

When I was in college, my friend Ivan (I have to call him that because he gets pissed when I use his given name of Chris Wettle) got me to go see a local band called Government Cheese. For the next 3 years we saw them anywhere from 8 to 12 times at venues like Tewligans and the UD Pub. They were an interesting mix. They had roots in punk, country and rock and roll. Their albums were good, but it was their live shows that were phenomenal.

I often have said, as have others, they are one of the best bands you have never heard of.

It had been 20 years since I saw the boys play and they tore through a set of 38(!) songs tonight that made me feel all 42 years. They were on stage for just over 3 hours, excluding breaks. I am going to feel it tomorrow....

The venue, Headliner's Music Hall, is a hole in the wall with the hardest concrete floor I have ever stood on. It's reminiscent of Columbus's Newport or Cincinnati's Bogart's.

We waited patiently as the band was strolling through the crowd outside and in the hall talking to family and friends. They came out and launched through their first set playing all original music that focused on lead singer Skot Willis's vocals.

For me the setlist was very strong, but the performance was hit and miss. Some songs were noticeably slower than I remember from 20 years ago, but then again, I am noticeably slower than I was 20 years ago.

This was a band where you listen to the album version of "Before the Battered/Rap For the Battered" and it was a throwaway, but if you saw it live, it was incredible. It was one of the biggest highlights of the night tonight along with a faster version of "No Sleeping at Penn Station" in the first set.

The second set focused on Tommy's vocals and a few songs with Billy's lead vocals. It was highlighted early by an intense "Yellow Cling Peaches," "Sunday Driver," "Cattleprod," and the wonderful "The Shrubbery's Dead (Where Danny Used to Fall.)" And of course, the tongue in cheek "Kentucky Home," with huge apologies to Stephen Foster, was a crowd pleaser. Skot joking referred to it as the story of his life when introducing it.

And some songs missed for me by being played at a slower tempo like "C'mon Back to Bowling Green" and the cover "People Who Died."

For me, I had never seen "Fishstick Day," so it was fun to see and hilarious to learn Tommy Womack wrote it while stoned in his apartment all those years ago (he tells it much better than I.)

Overall, it was quite enjoyable and I encourage anyone who's read this far and has the $20 to buy their 43 song anthology and if they reunite for another show, take the time to go see them.

1. Oh Yeah
2. Rebecca Whitmire
3. Stay With Me
4. Mammaw Drives the Bus
5. I Wanna Be a Man
6. This Life's For Me
7. No Sleeping at Penn Station
8. A Little Bit of Sex
9. Growing Up to Stand Still
10. Fall In Love With You
11. Before the Battered/Rap for the Battered
12. Face to Face
13. The Yuppie is Dead/Nothing Feels Good (featuring the first stage dive by Skot)
14. I Can't Help Myself (cover - Jason and the Scorchers)

(27 minute break)>

15. Single
16. Yellow Cling Peaches
17. Camping on Acid
18. Alpha Male (Tommy Womack solo song)
19. Sunday Driver
20. I Can't Make You Love Me
21. Inside of You
22. Somewhere Between
23. Cattleprod
24. American Band (cover - Grand Funk Railroad)
25. It's Too Late
26. The Shrubbery's Dead (Where Danny Used to Fall)
27. C'mon Back to Bowling Green and Marry Me
28. Fishstick Day
29. Kentucky Home
30. Janie Jones (cover - The Clash)
31. Search and Destroy (cover - Stooges) - two stage dives by Skot

(Encores)

32. The KKK Took My Baby Away
33. Bathtub, She Asked
34. Folsom Prison Blues (cover - Johnny Cash)
35. (Song I did not recognize, I think it was a cover)
36. Pretty Vacant (cover - Sex Pistols)
37. Life During Wartime (cover - Talking Heads)
38. Skinny and Small -> People Who Died (cover - Jim Carroll Band)