So, last night was date night and it started out with a trip to our Neighborhood Applebees for dinner. Now, Normally I am a fan of Applebees and frankly, I’ve been the one pushing to go since I got here. I have met resistance the entire time. Last night, we went.

We should not have.

I can’t speak for my date, but for myself, the food just plain sucked. It was all kinds of suckage on levels of suck that I don’t think I have ever faced in a food arena before. I ordered a steak. Medium Rare. They completely forgot the “medium” and served me a slab of beef that had never even seen the heat of a hot pan. It was still alive I am sure. I’m not sure if the rest of my food sucked on it’s own right or if it just tasted horrible because I was still reeling from the raw meat, but nothing tasted good. Not the mashed potatoes or the shrimp or the french onion soup. And I love me some french onion soup too!

My bad experience at Applebees didn’t ruin the entire night, however. We finished with dinner and we headed out to a local watering hole, a honky tonk bar just on the outskirts of town here. I had met the owner the other day at the bank and he was telling me about the live music he has there every Saturday night. He told me that this weeks band was one of his favorites and we should come out to see them. That’s exactly what we did. And we had a blast! The band that was playing was called Bogart Jones touted as “Classic Rockin’ Southern Fried Country Western Metal Blues”. Now, I don’t know where they get the Country Western cuz I didn’t hear anything that was country. They were fantastic tho! They were so much fun to watch! I can’t wait to catch them again.

Not only did they rock the songs they played, but they rocked them with a killer sound, fantastic skill on their instruments, and those boys could sing too! The guitar riffs and solos were phenomenal and seeing it live was exhilarating. I tried to get a video of their performance to share with y’all, but damn if it didn’t come out sounding like a cat in heat. My cell phone doesn’t do well with video sound. Meh. Oh well. Maybe that will force ya to come out and see them for yerselves!

They are back at Crossroads Bar and Grill on May 16th, however they are playing in Galesburg @ RJ’s Pub on May 8th. Their schedule shows them pretty booked out all over the area so if you are somewhere in the vicinity and need to know where they are going to be contact them at bogartjonesband@yahoo.com, head to their myspace, or you can leave me a comment and I will let ya know!

Really, you shouldn’t miss these folks. Almost makes me wish I were planning a wedding or a big even just I could book ‘em for my own private show!