The Big Wu were all smiles after a Somerset fest gig in 2001. / Carloz Gonzalez, Star Tribune
Way back in August of 2001, one month after I joined the Star Tribune team and a month before the world got a lot uglier, I trekked out to the River's Edge in Somerset, Wis., to interview a band that other local music writers had largely dismissed.
The Big Wu at the time was one of the biggest acts in town. Formed over Dead covers at St. Olaf College in 1992, the quintet drummed up a Twin Cities fan base with a weekly residency at the Terminal Bar, then graduated to the Cabooze. The day I visited them in Somerset, the five jammers played to about 3,000 fans first on a bill with String Cheese Incident and Phil Lesh. They also did two nights at the Minnesota Zoo that summer and went on to book the Roy Wilkins Auditorium for New Year's Eve. Man, did they seem like happy little rockers, and so were their "family" of fans, who shouted out song requests and gave me a notebook full of high (ahem) praise that day.
"When fans gush [about us], I really don't believe it's about us," keyboardist Al Oikari said. "If they say we're the best band, what they really mean is they're having the best time. Our fans really like each other. They like hanging out together and, man, do we like hanging out with them."
The Big Wu went through some ups and downs since those glory days, splitting with a demons-fighting guitarist Jason Fladager in 2002 (who went on to front God Johnson) and eventually cutting back to just a part-time unit in 2007. They and their fans never really parted with those glory days, though, and there are still at least a half-dozen or so Big Wu shows throughout the Midwest per year. When the guys do get together nowadays, those old good-timey vibes come flowing back immediately.
You can feel them again tonight at the Cabooze, where the group is celebrating its 20th anniversary (9 p.m., $10, click here for tickets).
