World Cup is 'Holy Week' at Pancho Villa

When it comes to watching the World Cup, Brit's Pub is king. But the downtown Minneapolis multilevel complex is far from the only bar brimming with World Cup fever this month.

With our large Latino population, the Twin Cities bar scene is home to plenty of Mexican strongholds. Pancho Villa stands out for one glaring reason:

"Cheap drinks!" yelled bargoer Yaleb Villalobos last Thursday. He had come to watch Mexico play France.

Villalobos, 27, and his friends sat around a table covered in empty and half-empty glasses. The Eat Street restaurant offers two-for-ones on margaritas and tap beers -- all day.

Owner Ivan Cardenas has steadily built up his small restaurant since 2005, when he began expanding into neighboring storefronts. Wearing a green Mexico jersey, he stood in a packed crowd of green as he helped direct his beefed-up staff (five extra servers and three cooks on this day). The World Cup has been good for business. The only problem: "I'm running around -- I don't have time to watch," he said.

Even with air conditioning and an array of ceiling fans, the air inside the restaurant grew muggier as more and more people streamed through the door. Villalobos sat transfixed as his team struggled to score its first goal.

"If you lose, it's like you break up with your girlfriend. You have that pain in your chest," he said. "If you win, it's like you got a new girlfriend."

His friends included a mix of Colombians and Mexicans (the Colombians cheered for France). After Mexico went up 1-0, one of Villalobos' compadres threw the Mexican flag over Javier Delgado, a Colombian.

"I'm melting!" screamed Delgado.

Soon, Mexico was up 2-0, a score France wouldn't recover from. Maybe it was time for Villalobos and his friends to go back to work. What work, they said?

"It's like a holiday," Villalobos said of the World Cup. "It's like Holy Week."

The festivities will resume this Sunday as Mexico takes on Argentina in the second round at 1:30 p.m.

• Tom Horgen

New gallery is a CO production

Standing in the middle of his crew's massive new gallery, CO Exhibitions, Mike Davis looked like a guy who'd been given the keys to the design kingdom.

"We've been trapped down in the basement," said Davis, a principal at poster-design group Burlesque of North America.

Being in the basement hasn't necessarily been a bad thing. For more than three years, Burlesque (whose clients include everyone from Arcade Fire to the Melvins to the Rhymesayers label) had hosted a series of successful art exhibitions in their First Amendment screen-printing studio, located in the downstairs of an old factory building in northeast Minneapolis (1101 NE. Stinson Blvd.).

"That was kind of batting practice," Davis said. "Now it's time to play ball."

After getting a sneak peek at the new first-floor digs, I gotta say: It looks like they've already knocked it out of the park. The place is huge. Exposed brick covers one side of the room (with 15-foot-high windows), while the other is pure open canvas -- 20-foot white walls ready for art. They've also built three mobile walls, each weighing 1,500 pounds and standing about 9 feet tall.

The gallery is actually a partnership (hence the name) with Joseph Belk and his crew at the new art-and-design agency Permanent. The two companies will share offices and curate the gallery together. (Burlesque will keep its work studio in the basement.)

The space's bonafide concert stage means you can expect the old gallery's famous opening night parties to be even bigger. The opening exhibition of Doomtree-releated art, "Wings & Teeth," is Saturday 6/26.

• Tom Horgen

Garden sufficiently rocked

Was it another great day at Rock the Garden last Saturday, or what? They had the beer lines figured out better this year. They had a pretty terrific food selection. And too bad that hill next to the Walker can't be used for concerts all summer. One obvious improvement for next year might be a JumboTron screen. The fact that half the crowd couldn't see the visual sensation of pint-sized Sharon Jones tearing up the stage would have been a travesty if the aural side of it wasn't equally sensational.

Not to bash even more on MGMT, but it actually seemed that the Brooklyn wizards were going to defy the low expectations at first. The band was pretty electrifying early on with hazily rocking songs such as "Destrokk" and the Prince-on-acid rocker "Flash Delirium." After "Electric Feel," though (song No. 4), it became a completely bipolar set: The audience came to life only when the other two hits off "Oracular Spectacular" started up, but it was utterly zombified otherwise. The band also snidely kept trying to make fun of the VIP "Skybox" sections. Dudes, those are the people who put in a lot of money or manpower to the nonprofit organizations that make RTG happen.

OK Go was a bit too kitschy for one short fest set, pressing the confetti-thrower button two too many times and joking around too much. And there was no gimmick to Retribution Gospel Choir's opening set, just bleeding guitar work and a rapidly paced delivery. RTG was clearly a breakthrough for RGC.

• Chris Riemenschneider