Just to add to Ms. Fensterstock’s assessment of the Happy Talk Band show at the Bingo Tent, it was one of the better shows I’ve seen. Everyone looked exhausted, drunk, crazed, or some combination thereof. Several musicians’ bags under their eyes had bags under their eyes. Yet they powered through singer/songwriter Luke Allen’s songs with a desperate intensity most befitting of the subjects of said songs. At a certain point I looked at guitarist Alex McMurray who had one of those looks on his faces and said to fellow OZ programmer the Boudin Cowboy, “Look out for McMurray. He’s either going to do the most amazing solo or bash some dude with his guitar.” Lo and behold McMurray 10 minutes later played his guitar with a ferocity of someone smashing the skulls of his worst enemy. And then there were the shirtless bearded guys in front wearing masks on the back of their heads drinking tall boy cans of Heineken dancing and singing to every word. Happy Talk Band groupies! Like most things in the Bingo Tent, it was in technicolor and then when you walked to the other stages they were in black and white. The whole show reminded me of the Royal Fingerbowl Jazzfest sets in the late 90s/early 00s when they started at 11:15 AM on the Sprint Stage and hadn’t slept the night before and you never knew what was going to happen. As the poem I am going to write about this set will go:

Confusion almost reigns
Nobody’s slept
Nobody’s sober
It’s 12:45 PM and
the fun
is just beginning