I had probably the greatest concert experience of my life February 9th 2001 at the High Dive in Champaign Illinois. My buddy Jake from upper Michigan who is also a Dinosaur Jr. / Fog fan drove about 7 hours to my place in northern Illinois and then we drove an additional 3 hours south to the High Dive.

The venue is great; it’s divided into an east and west bar, the stage being next to the east bar. Check out their website http://www.thehighdive.com , it’s definitely one of the better venue websites I’ve seen. The first band was called Teenbeaters, who had the typical alternative pop rock sound. They were pretty good. They got the crowd rocking a little bit. One cool thing that happened during their set was that Jake and I saw Mike Watt in the balcony and waved to him. I think we were the only people who saw him. He gave a big smile and waved back. The High Dive has an upstairs where the musicians hang out and it has a little balcony overlooking the stage.

Next up was Elf Power. Their sound is a little hard to describe, but you can download an mp3 at their site http://www.elfpower.com They have an interesting band; you get to hear organs, saxophones, violins, and of course the usual guitars, bass, and drums. They also got the crowd rocking a bit and Jake and I started shouting, “Don’t shelf the Elf!â€