All in the Method

Drinking for Jesus 2008 got off to a rousing start last night at Immaculate Heart of Mary. It didn't appear I would raise a beer to the son of God last night but plans fell into place at the last minute and there I was, beer in hand listening to Milwaukee's best cover band, Rhythm Method.

Simply put, no band in the area come close to what they do. They play classic rock and they play it well. They don't play the same 10 songs every other cover band in the area feels they need to play. If you want to hear Come on Eileen, go elsewhere. If you want to hear a blend of Rush or Yes, you have come to the right place.

I find it amazing how well they can play a medley of songs by a band. For example, they will start playing Limelight, slide right into Free Will, and then crank right into Tom Sawyer, covering just parts of each song, making seamless transitions between each tune. You never quite know what will come next from these guys.

One other bright spot is they aren't afraid to try something new. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I was happy to hear them play some 80s rock again. It was good to hear some new music in the form of ELO and Queen. They hit a home run with David Bowie hit Fame followed by Under Pressure, the Queen/Bowie collaboration. Funny how my friend Tim (same changed to protect the innocent) thought they were going to cover Vanilla Ice. Strange to hear someone play Mr. Mister (Kyrie) too. But it went over well.

Not all was perfect though. At one point they went offstage and played what I believe was a clip from the movie Almost Famous. The audio has someone speaking to some groupies about how he is there to interview Black Sabbath. I thought that would be a nice segue into Paranoid or maybe Iron Man. Instead they came back with.....Elton John, Tiny Dancer? WTF? Swing and a miss! That was painful. But it was funny watching two big guys in front of the stage trying to rock to it. They made up with Benny and the Jets and Saturday's Alright.

All in all a very good show. Especially when you run into friends who know a person serving the beer. Any time I turned around I had one of them filling up my cup so I was never dry. Sweet!

Drinking for Jesus continues tonight with Cherry Pie on stage. Hopefully they have changed up their set list as well. Should be a good show.