The Metal Files

Not a huge fan of either band but in the early 90s I was working at a mall record store over the holiday season and Soul Asylum’s Grave Dancers Union was a huge hit.  After hearing the album nightly, I started to like it,  Never got into anything else by them but I do love this particular album.   Spying some of the setlists from the current tour, I saw that they were playing much of the album and decided to go.

The Meat Puppets were the opener and I don’t really know much about them beyond having covered their single Backwater in the early 90s.  I knew Lake of Fire from Nirvana’s Unplugged concert.  To be honest, I didn’t enjoy their set at all.  While they’re skilled players, their music does zero for me.  Plus they didn’t play the one song I cared about.  And yes, I’m totally that guy.  haha.  They did, however, do a cool cover of Seven Spanish Angels.

Soul Asylum comes on and opens with my favorite song, Somebody To Shove.  Dave Pirner sounds great.  His voice was strong and his band was tight.  They feature Michael Bland on drums who was in Prince’s band for much of the 90s.  They guy was awesome, of course.  Their set was pretty much as I had seen online and I had a great time.  I’d probably go see them again given the right bill.

Soul Asylum

Soul Asylum