Just a note — If Berkeley seems too far for you tonight, you could go see Phoebe Bridgers at Bottom of the Hill and report back on how she was. I’m still a little sad that I can’t go see her tonight, but…

Mipso!!!!  The first time that we saw Mipso was a total accident. It was a Friday or a Saturday night in December and Pat really wanted to go out with the LOLMs (Ladies of Live Music).  To be clear, you do not need to identify as a lady to be a LOLM. So Pat did his research — he checked who was playing at all of the places that we normally go and he came up with two suggestions.  I forget who the first band was (because we weren’t familiar with either of the bands), but the second band was Mipso playing at Brick and Mortar.

I will confess that we were not there for the music per se. We did listen to both bands before we decided, but I think the location of the show weighed into the decision as heavily as the music did. So we met up at Brick & Mortar. We were as far from the stage as we could get and still be inside, and we were chatting, but we did like the music and we enjoyed the show.

Flash forward to Red Wing Roots in July 2016. Mipso was one of the bands performing. At RWR, you see pretty much every band because that’s just how it’s set up. If the band doesn’t totally rock my world, I will ‘watch’ the show from the beer garden. I was front and center for Mipso — no beers for me. I fell in love this second time that I saw them. Yes, they knew it because I may have stalked them a tiny bit.  RWR is good for that! The right amount of beer combined with a very small festival and a lot of familiar faces from prior years is conducive for me behaving ‘badly’. I love the fiddle player, Libby Rodenbough; I’m not sure why but there’s something about her.

In July 2017,  Joseph Terrell (guitar, vocals) was at RWR and joined a few other performers on stage (because RWR is also good for that!), but no Mipso performances. The rest of the band couldn’t be there. Luckily, I had already gotten my fix in SF (Slim’s) before I left for this trip. I also got to see The Barefoot Movement in SF right before the RWR trip (The Back Room). They were a RWR discovery from 2015. They were amazing, playing a string version of Ozzy Osborne’s ‘Crazy Train’ at The Back Room show. If you ever have an opportunity to see The Barefoot Movement, do it! But I digress….

So, Mipso is back in the Bay Area. They are playing at the Mystic in Petaluma on Sunday, April 29th. I meant to post this earlier in the week to try to convince people to go to either of these shows, but the road to hell and good intentions — you know the saying.

Last year, they did a tour with The Lil Smokies and The Brothers Comatose (my favorite local band) and it almost killed me to not go their show at GAMH. If I remember correctly, it was during HSB and it just was NOT a possibility, but it was a hard choice to miss Mipso. (I was able to see The Brothers Comatose at HSB.) I’m very happy to be able to rectify this situation by going to see them tonight and the good news is that they will be playing RWR this summer so I’ll be seeing them again there too!

All this talk about RWR made me go to look at the lineup for this year.  Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!  Did I mention I’m With Her, Trampled by Turtles, Dori Freeman, The Secret Sisters, David Wax Museum, John Moreland, Mipso (duh — did you read this post) and, of course, The Steel Wheels.

Music — it’s what gets me through the week! It’s good to remind myself that there’s always more (especially after the Tuesday night shit-show). So I’ll be waiting for 10 am so I can buy my Wood Brothers tickets for the Sweetwater. I suspect some others will be grabbing their Lake Street Dive tickets (Fillmore) at the same time. I think I’ll take my chances and NOT pay the ridiculous service fees from the Fillmore and hope that I can make it to the box office on Sunday and also make it to Ava’s First Communion party. On my way to work today, I’ll be listening to NPR to hear about what dropped this week. All day long, I’ll be thinking about Mipso and waiting for the day to end and the evening to begin.

Will I see you tonight too?