As the legend goes, The Replacements were a different band from one night to the next in the 1980s—triumphant and beautiful on a Thursday, drunken and disastrous on a Friday—so the premise of the First Avenue tribute show, where dozens of Twin Cities bands of varying talent and passion and sobriety take the stage to pay homage, is a philosophically sound one. The tradition of covering The Replacements in Minneapolis is as rich and tangled as the story of rock ‘n’ roll itself, but it became formalized last year with the 25th anniversary of Let It Be at First Avenue, and continued this year with the anniversary of Tim.
Two stages, 22 acts. Not a music festival exactly, but the joys and frustrations were many. Kathy Easthagen will report soon (link) on the Mainroom acts; here’s what I saw next door in The Entry.
9:15 – Martin Devaney and his band came closest to what The Replacements might have been on a great night, and were the highlight of my night. They started with a hootenanny, in the Replacements sense of the term, picking up their own instruments and then switching (bass for rhythm guitar, lead guitar for drums) after their set had ostensibly begun, to leave no doubt that their tribute went beyond the choice of covers. If the band was a bit too assured and un-sloppy in this impromptu arrangement, we forgave them, especially when they swapped back and became the glorious thing of ragged rock ‘n’ roll beauty that it would be nice to believe The Replacements always were. They sold “Never Mind” as the top-tier ‘Mats song I’ve always suspected it might be, and delivered a heartbreakingly faithful version of the band’s greatest song, “Sixteen Blue.” Every sad note of Bob Stinson’s guitar solo, every pained word of Paul Westerberg’s vocal, it was all done almost note for note, and yet not like some kind of museum piece, but as if it was happening for the first time. God, that song kills me; if only I could be 13 again…
Zonk!
9:35 – The Mad Ripple, led by Jim Walsh, longtime music journalist and number-one protector of The Replacements legacy (for better or worse), started their set with a reverse hootenanny, by which I mean they covered “Hootenanny” while keeping their own instruments. But there’s an improvisatory air in everything the band does, no less so in their versions of “Within Your Reach” (that moment in 1983 when Paul Westerberg could have become a great lo-fi home recording artist, but rendered here as a full-band ramshackle-cum-divine anthem) and “I Will Dare” (barely holding together, and with the Peter Buck solo severely botched, but do we demand any better on a night like this?). Here and throughout the night, song choice was excellent and creative, not restricted simply to Replacements covers, but bringing in relevant items like Lucinda Williams’ “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings” (written for Paul Westerberg) and Big Star’s “Ballad of El Goodo” (the latter with Ben Glaros joining on vocals and guitar.) Alex Chilton was alive this time last year, and it was a wise decision this time around to pay tribute firsthand, rather than secondhand via The Replacements’ own “Alex Chilton.”
10:00 – Sons of Gloria channeled the spirit of the early Replacements without playing many of the band’s actual songs. One cover was introduced as “our favorite Replacements song,” but turned out to be “2541,” the great first post-Hüsker Dü single by Grant Hart! (Speaking of, is the history of Hüsker Dü somehow a bit too distasteful for a similar annual celebration of their music? I don’t understand. You know we love them just as much in Minneapolis.) Later, over a barebones instrumental (yet another hootenanny, of a sort), drummer Tom Cook told stories about Bob Stinson (driving with Bob during a thunderstorm, drinking with Bob, and other morsels that could barely be called anecdotes), before admitting, “I don’t have a lot of Bob Stinson stories.” That probably says more about Bob Stinson’s lifestyle than it does about the strength of Cook’s long-gone friendship with the man. Elsewhere, the band did versions of Stink outtakes and “Take Me Down To The Hospital,” choices that maybe only contemporaries of the original homegrown Replacements would make, and delivered them more as memories than as covers.
10:20 – Ryan Paul is a thin young man who might look less out of place at a tribute show for The Jam, but he’s a fine strummer and any classic tune might prove good fodder for his charming style. I’d just seen Pink Mink (recently voted the best band in the Twin Cities in the annual City Pages poll Picked To Click) play a fairly shapeless and, er, colorless version of “Color Me Impressed” in the Mainroom, so was delighted to hear Paul deliver it with the nuance and feeling lacking in Pink Mink’s power pop blunderbuss. “Can’t Hardly Wait” was equally winning, and lacking horn and string sections at the crucial moments, Paul simply strummed with twice as much force. At this point things were heating up with Pink Mink next door and the venue was getting crowded, so, full to bursting with Replacements love and chagrined that Ryan Paul didn’t have the audience he deserved, Favorite Thing and I took our leave into the cold, cold night, much too cold to pay our own homage and hang downtown with memories of Westerberg and Co.
Note: There was an embargo on songs from Tim until the night’s climactic moment, when the album was covered from start to finish by the “Let It Be House Band,” with a rotating lineup of singers. More about that in the next report.
Onward to Part 2.
