What's the deal with people from Fort Collins, Colorado? Bunch of weirdos, I tell ya. Why, if I so much as even knew someone from there -- let alone went to school there -- I'd... but you get the joke already, so I don't need to finish it.

Okay, so let me see if I understand this all. The Heene family was on "Wife Swap." The dad claims to be a meteorologist or scientist, but it turns out he only has a high school education. The entire event with the child-trapped-inside-a-balloon was a hoax. The police, in an effort to win over the Heene's trust and thereby unearth the truth, lied to the press (thus, creating their own hoax) by pretending to believe the Heene's story. And, oh yeah, there's a Wikipedia page devoted to the incident and everything. Can a brother get a "What the fuck?"

I know I've probably caused a large percentage of our readership much consternation and inability-to-sleep by not stating which show I ended up going to last night. YOU MAY NOW REST EASY: I went to see Lucero. Why? The answer to that question goes back a long, long, long, long, long, long time ago. I'm talking late Thursday night.

Thursday night was the Gaslight Anthem show at Terminal 5. I had never been to Terminal 5 before and, when I arrived, I almost immediately didn't like it. It's way too big. (I know, I know -- they're a bunch of sell-outs. Why can't they play small, intimate venues?) Seriously, though, the space was kind of unnecessarily large. The Gaslight Anthem still put on a good show, and I enjoyed their set, but waiting around for them to play wasn't much fun. And since The Avett Brothers were also playing at Terminal 5, I decided to see Lucero at a different venue: Webster Hall. Aesthetically, Webster Hall is much nicer. It's smaller, cozier, and isn't as open/gigantic. However, whoever was running sound there last night didn't do a great job. Everything was just ridiculously loud. I had to really concentrate on each of the instruments if I wanted to hear, say, a kick-ass organ solo. Maybe the space has some tough acoustics, but it was definitely one of the worst-sounding shows I've been to in a while. Which is a shame, because Lucero played for close to two hours. Aside from the new album (which they played in its entirety, save for "What Are You Willing To Lose?," [majorly disappointed by that, but whatever] "Sixes and Sevens," and "Halfway Wrong"), they hit a lot of the older classics: "That Much Further West," "Chain Link Fence," "Nights Like These," "Tears Don't Matter Much," "Sweet Little Thing," and "What Else Would You Have Me Be?" So yeah, a very solid set. I didn't realize that Ben Nichols does lead-guitar on some songs. I always assumed it was the larger guy with the bushy beard who played lead. So that was cool. I also didn't realize how scrawny Ben is. This is really an observation of no consequence whatsoever, I just felt like pointing it out on behalf of scrawny people everywhere. Look, you, too, can be successful!