Craig’s Crag

Day 3 (July 2nd)

This day started out with Gwenn, Tracey, and myself all meeting at The Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar had a free shuttle service running from the bar to Summerfest all day long and we all figured it would be nice to have a few cheap drinks and head over in an hour or two.

Gwenn and I also had some unfinished business regarding who’s the better pool player. I’m happy to report I left for Summerfest leading 9 games to 7.

Once at the festival grounds Gwenn left for the Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus show which she had tickets for. So I ended up in a group with Joel, and Tracey, and a few others I was less aquainted with.

First on the agenda was checking out the Brew City Bruisers! This is a Milwaukee area female roller derby league. Oh yeah! Alot of the interest also stems from the fact some of the girls are friends or involved in the group in some way.

The show was great, even though it was a bit toned down due to the fact that the track was makeshift and slightly smaller than what they would normally be racing on and the fact that the crowd was at some points just inches from the track. Grace Killy (Anna K), who is one of our ‘gang’ did us all proud with her skating. Unfortunately her team (Maiden Milwaukee) lost their match.

The turnout for the exhibition was amazing and the place was standing room only. Hopefully the interest generated will carry over and they’ll get good crowds when their inaugural season officially begins this August.

After the roller derby exhibition, we headed on down to check out Soul Asylum. After listening to a few songs I went to go to the bathroom and then got some food, when I got back some of our group had left as I guess there had been some drama while I was gone. Since the primary reason I went to the fest this day was to see the Bruisers and then Joan Jett, I excused myself and headed down to see if I could get a good seat for the Joan Jett show.

While looking for a seat I found the part of the group that had left the Soul Asylum show while I was away.

Bands I saw:

Soul Asylum: I only stayed for a few songs, but I enoyed what I saw. I had forgotten just how many songs had gotten air play from this band, and they sounded pretty good. Had Joan Jett not been playing at another stage immediately after Soul Asylum would be ending, I would have stayed for the whole show.

Joan Jett: I consider her a living legend in plain ol ‘Rock and Roll’. She is certainly a pioneer in the Riot Grrrl/Grrrl Rock movement and nobody tours harder year in and year out. I had never seen her before so I made it a point to see her this year. I was not dissapointed. The band sounded tight and she was in great form. I think she’s got the best rock scream of all the women rockers. Very gutteral, yet high energy.

Summary of day 3(star rating out of 5)