Knoxify

“Nei­ther snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couri­ers from the swift com­ple­tion of their appointed rounds.” — The Postman’s Creed, 1912

Appar­ently, beer drinkers have a code, too: “Nei­ther rain nor gloom of cloud cov­er­age nor cold nor mud nor coin­cid­ing UT foot­ball game stays these beer drinkers from the swift con­sump­tion of the over-abundance of beer.”

Brew­ers’ Jam of ought-nine was overly gloomy from the onset. Stand­ing on the out­side, at the front of the line, under the ever pres­ence of omi­nous cloud cov­er­age, one had time to think the Jack-Handy-esque thoughts of the out times. Is Uni­ver­sal Health­Care good for our coun­try as a whole? Should we still have troops sta­tioned in the Mid­dle East? Why can’t Jon and Kate make it work out? How are we going to save our fledg­ling econo… what’s that? Brew­ers’ Jam is now open? Lets get our prover­bial drink-on!”

Yup, that’s right. For that period of time from the begin­ning to end of Brew­ers’ Jam only one thing mat­tered… one must try as many beers as pos­si­ble before they run out. Sure it was muddy. Pretty chilly, too. But the copi­ous amount of beer and fan­tas­tic music made it, as always, worthwhile.

As far as bands, the line up was a good mix. First up was the charming-despite-their-name Cen­tralia Mas­sacre, fol­lowed by a dif­fer­ent look / sound for Bobby Bare Jr., the Bobby Bare Jr.‘s Young Crim­i­nals Star­va­tion League. Last time I caught Mr. Bare Jr. his band was sans-saxophone. Nice addi­tion. Then came the happily-irreverent [in a good way!] Cut­throat Sham­rock. Finally, the incred­i­bly under­rated Bren­dan James Wright and the Wrongs took the stage. Wright and com­pany define what makes the Knoxville music scene so utterly wonderful.

At the end of the day [or a wee bit ear­lier for me because, as much as I love my beer, I love UT foot­ball even more], Brew­ers’ Jam is the same as it is every year, no mat­ter the con­di­tions. A won­der­ful gath­er­ing of like-minded, beer-swilling com­rades. For a moment, we all lived Rod­ney King’s dream, and got along.