Face off It was barely two hours after Canada's overtime win in the Olympic men's hockey final, and Jon Pilatzke, the Chieftains' fiddler and tap dancer from Ottawa, Ontario, proudly pranced onstage at Orchestra Hall wearing a screaming red Canada hoodie. He tugged at the letters a little too long, so concertgoers started giving him the raspberry. To change the mood, tap dancer Cara Butler, from New York's hockey-crazed Long Island, bounded onstage wearing a blue U.S.A. sweatshirt. She thrust both arms in the air as if she'd scored the winning goal, and the Minnesota crowd went wild. JON BREAM
Ban those attention-robbing wall cards Overheard at last Friday's After Hours party at Walker Art Center, a curatorial type 'splaining to some visitors: "We decided not to use wall tags for this exhibit, because we wanted people to be absorbed by the art, instead of spending their time reading." Well said. I.W. always feels bad about all the time it spends poring over those wall cards, and seeking, among other things, to learn the date and the names of the artists. In the Walker's defense, there are booklets in the gallery that can be carried around for the kind of info often carried by wall cards. Often carried by the cards, that is, in days before this latest brainstorm.
CLAUDE PECK
For the sake of the song Besides being one of GQ's best-dressed men of the year and a son of one of the best living songwriters (Steve Earle), Justin Townes Earle also has some of the best song-introduction lines. Among the verbal set-ups at his absolutely heartwarming sold-out Turf Club gig last week: "I have a knack for writing songs about women who don't particularly care for them" (before "What I Meant to You"); "You don't wanna mess with a songwriter, because I'll air your dirty laundry all over the world" ("Someday, I'll Be Forgiven for This"), and, "This one goes out to my two favorite things in the world: fried chicken and ... the ladies" (a new song; let's call it "Fried Chicken and the Ladies"). Perhaps best of all was his intro of the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait," which he simply dedicated to his pal Chris Feinstein, recently deceased bassist of Ryan Adams & the Cardinals.
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
Freaky for the Fetus Last weekend's benefit for the tornado-slammed Electric Fetus at First Avenue started out great, but with no surprises: The sold-out crowd predictably bulged for Cloud Cult's opening set, and the band was electrifying as usual. Then it got weird (in good ways). For starters, the audience surprisingly stuck around a long time, even causing a crush of bodies trying to get into the Entry for Caroline Smith. On the big stage, Jeremy Messersmith came out wearing a bass instead of guitar. Roma di Luna's backup vocalist Jessi Prusha came out eight months pregnant and still rocked the stage like the kid's dad (Slug) has a hundred times. Truly out of the ordinary, First Ave stage manager Conrad Sverkerson came out to sing "Hey Good Lookin'" with Trailer Trash and the help of a lyric sheet (always the professional). The fact that electro-hipsters and Trash virgins Solid Gold were setting up in the DJ booth and rappers Unknown Prophets prepped backstage while the hardcore honky-tonking went down was perhaps oddest of all. But hey, what else would you expect at a store named the Electric Fetus?
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
Scratching that Sitch "Anything involved with the Situation is a phenomenon." Yep, those words actually came out of Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's mouth Saturday night at Bootleggers. Yes, he speaks in the third person and, yes, he called himself a phenomenon. By the look of Saturday's crowd, he wasn't exaggerating. The star of MTV's "Jersey Shore" was here for a paid-to-party gig. About 2,000 people funneled through the bar to get a peek at his buff bod. It was almost as if the TV show's savage craziness had infected the crowd. As he stood in his roped-off booth, fans pushed forward, jostling for the best view. At one point, he jumped on the bar and poured liquor into screaming mouths. Then he lifted his shirt. Women rubbed his abs. Dudes shook his hand. Amid the madness, he told I.W., "I don't get tired of people loving me." He also let us in on what he'd be doing the next day: "On my day off, I do GTL -- gym, tanning and laundry." Fist pump!