Veterans of the LA rock scene c. 1980-2000 are sure to run into familiar faces at this event, held at the site of what used to be one downtown’s most esteemed institutions. For musicians too prickly to navigate the Hollywood club scene, Al’s Bar was a place where you could get away with just about anything, and often did. The place had a diverse booking policy that favored regulars and promising out of towners willing to play for a piece of the door. This reunion, organized by Lightning Woodcock, features many of those regulars, including the last band to play at the club before its closing, the Black Widows, the theatrical antics of Rosemary’s Billygoat, a special set by Jon Wahl and the Amadans with former bassist Steve Reed occupying the drum chair while yours truly recovers from a broken ankle, a rare sighting of the bomb-blast that is NostraDumAss, the killer beef that is Carnage Asada, the intoxicating attack of Swords of Fatima, funky lowdown-ness courtesy of the Golden Rulers, them shit-kickin’ Groovy Rednecks, and the barely-legal Leaking Pigs, a band born too late to be part of the Al’s scene, but that would surely have found a home there.
