November 27, 2004

Looking for a soulful blast from the past, the freak ventured down to uptown’s Famous Dave’s in uptown for a Paul Metsa hosted multi reunions of the Paul Metsa Group & Cats Under The Stars. First; I’m gonna start out by saying this: In this awkward age of dividers (& division) we find ourselves in, Paul Metsa is a uniter. And, of course, you can quote me on that. The 3 set night was in a sense Paul’s history brought to life with an unbelievable cast of characters. Metsa was on fire & a good example was when he said in trademark tounge in cheeky Paul: “Thanks to everyone in this town for giving me the benefit of the doubt (pause)” [ad libbed]. The Paul Metsa Group (which I used to see very frequently early in my career on Minneapolis’s enriched music scene) rambled thru many old favorites & blasts from the past like “Iko Iko”. Then as Paul opened up the last set with Cats Under The Stars with his signature spacy guitar intro he explained the song to sum up his 25 years of playing music in Minneapolis before careening into “Robots on Death Row”. Other greats worth mentioning are “Jump the Rope”, “59 Coalmines” & toward the bittersweet end Bob Dylan’s “(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue”. The latter is one of the most impactful tunes on me in my life thus far including my hearing it on 06/27/85 at my first Grateful Dead show ever. For these complex reasons I will never be the same. I wanna thank Paul for inviting me that night to his after party. I truly wish I could have gone. Check out Paul Metsa playing weekly (& freakily) at Famous Dave’s. He is a gem in the rough here in the tamer than ever Twin Cities. Visit: paulmetsa.com.

Cats Under The Stars

Metsa & the Freak