One of the best parts of the Circus was the success of the side stages, with some of Henry Clay People’s favorite bands playing stripped down acoustic sets between main stage acts. By the end of the night, side stages were appearing out of thin air. I think I saw Eli Monolator (the night’s emcee) start playing songs on a bench in the smoker’s patio, but I was sharing a joint with a blogger and a singer from one of my fave local bands, and blogger weed is a lot stronger than mine, so I may have imagined that.

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The Monolators are America’s greatest midnight band, who always make it worth staying up all night. I look forward to their closing sets, because they play straight up, balls out garage-punk-pop better than anyone on the eastside OR the westside. I realized going into their set that there was a sixty-percent chance that my badly stubbed toe would be broken (it was) by the end of the night, with an even greater likelihood that one of the Monolators would destroy some equipment (they did). It’s a real shame that they can’t clone the Monolators seven or eight times so they can close every show (at least in the eastside clubs) every night of the week.

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