Departments
Rock around the block tonight
By Steve Lange
With 13 bands on two stages, the all-day, all-ages St. John’s Block Party brings its so-hip-we-can’t-believe-it’s-sponsored-by-a-church event to downtown for the sixth consecutive year.
The July 11th event will be headlined by Cracker, a staple of the alt-music scene (they’ve released 10 studio albums and have been touring since 1991) who have cranked out their share of pop hits, from (in descending order of hitness): “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” “Low,” “Get Off This,” “Happy Birthday to Me,” “I Hate My Generation,” and “Euro-Trash Girl.” And while their setlist is seat-of-the-pants (they’ve even been known to break out “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” a punk classic from lead singer David Lowery’s former band, Camper Van Beethoven), we’d go just to hear the live version of “Euro-Trash Girl,” (“Called my mom from a payphone, I said ‘I’m down to my last.’ She said ‘I sent you to college, now go call your dad. ... I’ll search the world over for my angel in black. Yeah I’ll search the world over for a Euro-trash girl.’”)
Bands on the two main stages run from noon until whenever Cracker’s set ends (they’re slated to start at 10 p.m.), and include the Meat Puppets (the punk/country band—they’ve been called “cow punkers”—who performed with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged) and Cloud Cult (the Minneapolis-based indie rockers), along with 10 others.
There’s also a kids’ stage (with acts every hour from 1-4 p.m.) as well as face painting, balloon animals and more.
Last year’s event—which featured co-headliners the BoDeans and Soul Asylum—drew 4,000-5,000 fans and raised $10,000 for local causes.
Advance tickets are available for $15 through July 3, then increase to $25. They are available at St. John’s Parish office and other locations. Check out sjblockparty.org or call 288-7372.