Later in the evening they slowed things down to play some requests like “Where in the hell did you go with my toothbrush.”

This was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. My son Mars is a huge fan and was at first super-excited when he found out Reverend Horton Heat was coming to The Orange Peel, then distraught when he saw it was not all ages. I convinced him to start contacting people, which led to him eventually to Bigsy of the RHH road crew. Bigsy made sure we could get in, and for that he will always be the man.

The whole show was great. One highlight was that it was Jimbo’s birthday. Road crew member Hoss brought a cake on stage, then after the candles were out proceeded to sing Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” while Horton Heat shredded. Well done Hoss! I started to record that too but the crowd got to moshing and we were in the middle of it.

Jim Heath, the Reverend and Jimbo hung out after the show and Mars was able to get their autographs and chat briefly. They have had a huge influence on him and are the reason he has mowed a lot of grass to get a hollow body guitar, and he now has an upright bass in his sights. I had printed the email from Bigsy, because I wanted to be sure I could get the boy in, and Mars got it autographed by Jim and Jimbo.

Big thanks to them for talking to the kid.

Mars with Reverend Horton Heat at The Orange Peel

Mars with Jimbo Wallace at The Orange Peel

My pal Kevin (Circle K) and I went to the sold out Chris Cornell show at The Orange Peel in Asheville. I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even know it was going to be a solo acoustic set. He performed solo work, songs by Temple of The Dog, Soundgarden, and Audioslave. He also did several covers including songs from Mother Love Bone, and, “Billy Jean” by Michael Jackson. I decided I would catch just one song on video and it turned out to be this one. Another interesting thing from the show is that Cornell, for two songs, used instrumental vinyl records as accompaniment. He had a turntable to the side, would put the needle on, sing the song, and then take the needle off. Nice.

"One Two (tickets) Oh My God!" We got in to see the Beastie Boys.

How ridiculously lucky can you get? This show was at a club that only holds a little over 900 people. It was announced only a day before tickets went on sale, and week before the show. I started loading the ticket page on a couple different computers right before 4 PM, along with a lot of other people. For the most part the site would not load at all after 4. Then, when it did I would get an error when I tried to buy tickets. About 10 minutes later it started saying “SOLD OUT.” I could not believe it. Took a minute to complain/tweet about it. Then, went back at it. Finally, I got through! And it was NOT sold out. Yes!

I wanted to go pretty bad, and my son Mars even more so. Mary said he got so nervous when I was trying to score tickets he couldn’t watch. He went to play his drums for a bit. That didn’t help my concentration.

I got the tickets. You want a shirt, bring money.

We got there over an hour in advance, and the line was already long. The cool thing is it appears the promoters and club did everything they could to keep it fair, and minimize ticket scalping. You could only buy two. Everybody’s tickets were “will call,” even if you got the few they had at the box office. You had to bring the card you used for the purchase and another picture ID. Once you got your tickets you had to go straight into the club. Despite all that I heard people in line with an extra ticket were getting offered crazy money.

I had no idea Biz Markie was going to be there. He DJ’d for about 20 minutes and it was awesome! He totally owned the crowd. His set went through a ton of old school hip hop from the ’80s and ’90s. And somewhat to my surprise the crowd was extra hip hop literate. The Biz kept fading the mix to let the crowd a capella through lines of Grandmaster Flash, LL Cool J, even some Bob Marley, and bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. Massively entertaining. “If you remember that one, I know you’ll remember this…”

Of course, he couldn’t finish without giving us a little from “Just a Friend.” Make SURE to watch this video again.

When the Beastie Boys finally came out it was to Biz Markie doing “The Biz vs. The Nuge” (Check Your Head). Perfect.

And I couldn’t believe they had Money Mark with them. Money Mark’s records get played as much as anything in my collection. He’s been a hero of mine for years. Later in the set Mike D asked Mark to come out from behind the keyboards to play “Mark on the Bus.” Brilliant. (Clip from a different show.)

And what about the Beastie Boys? Well, I don’t how it could have been any better. They were fun, funny and funky. They played everything from their earliest punk stuff to a couple brand new songs with something from just about every record, save for License to Ill. I loved every bit of it, but I was especially glad they did a bunch of their instrumentals like “Pow” and “Ricky’s Theme.”

Mix Master Mike put on an impressive show and really turned it out with a scratching solo to open the encore. They finished strong with “Sabotage” and it was time to go home.

A couple other highlights include AdRock giving the crowd dance lessons for the “Jerry Lewis” and the “Funky Penguin.” He’s got skills. And I’ll never forget Biz Markie joining the band to sing Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.” The Biz took his shirt off and every person in the house pulled out their camera phone to capture the big man going natural.

But wait! There’s more. Thank you Flip owners.

“Sure Shot”