Thursday, March 08, 2007

Did I just hear 311?!?!?!?!

On the subject of American Idol (see the post below), Sweetie and I were sitting in the living room, watching the guys sing on Tuesday night. Blake Lewis was up to sing first.

I immediately recognized the song, but was having trouble placing who it was that originally sang it.

Then it dawned on me. We were listening to a 311 song!!!!

When I was in high school, 311 was a local group in Omaha that was well-known in the area. It was a group of kids from, if I remember right, Westside High School who were a couple of years older than me...and they rocked. Unfortunately, the vast majority of their shows were in "over-18 only" venues, and since I was under 18, that meant I only got to see them once. At a place in Omaha (now closed, I think) called the Ranch Bowl.

Yeah, I was under 18 at the time. I'm such a rebel. Pffffft.

But anyway, they got a record deal sometime in the mid-90's and have been pretty big with the high school/college set since. They have kind of a Red Hot Chili Peppers-meets-Jamiroquai sound to them. Funky, not quite reggae but almost sometimes, not quite rap but almost sometimes...sometimes hard rock, sometimes not-so-much...they're hard to really put a label on. It was cool to see one of their songs done on American Idol in a "hometown-kids-make-it-sorta-big" kind of way. I'll try to ignore the fact that not a single one of the judges recognized the song.

I swear, they're so out of touch.

Hadn't they ever been to the Ranch Bowl?

LH

1 comment:

mark said...

what????
the ranch bowl is closed????
i went to a couple concerts there during college.
i saw weezer there. it was possibly my favorite concert ever.
if the ranch bowl is closed, that is a very sad thing.
and i'm surprised paula abdul didn't perform there in the 80's ;)