Well, look, here ’tis. If you, like me, love the Bluerunners‘ debut disc on Island, let me tell you, it is tepid, that’s right I said tepid, in comparison to what they’ll do to you live. Picture this: Muddy Water’s at just past midnight, it’s gotta be a 130 degrees with a heat index of about 163, the place is packed like hot sweaty oily sardines and the Bluerunners—they don’t take the stage, they incinerate it, with so much energy it’s miraculous there aren’t more cases of spontaneous human combustion. They play their songs with such an all-out sense of urgency and tension it’s impossible to stand still. And this band is so much fun to watch. Mark and Steve, looking serious and intense; Mike is a whirling dervish; and Rob Savoy looks like a demonic Charlie Callas as he mangles his bass—it’s no wonder his strap is duct-taped to the body; while John sits behind his drums with a beatific smile on his face, just taking it all in. And yeah, they probably did most of the songs from the LP, but who remembers? But they did do a cool swampy “Sugar Bee.” Best moment of a steaming night was when Mike raised his frottoir above his head with both hands and with total abandon, thrashed the cymbals and drums. Whew! If you haven’t seen this band live, do not miss them while they’re still playing the dubs.

Also, as an aside, I don’t know how many of you are aware of or have seen the Bluerunners’ video “I Can’t Help You.” Shot in their hometown by friend John Britt, the video features scenes of local life in Lafayette. There are some great dogs in this video interspersed with shots of the band playing in various clubs. For some reason MTV has told the band that their video is “too hard” (?) to be played on their 120 Minutes show. Wake up, guys.