Adams: Cooler than North Adams?

... Yes. Here's the scoop, readers.

Angela and Jackie and I found ourselves locked out of a favorite Pittsfield dive bar Friday night. It was 12:45; what to do? So I rang up a coworker from my day job, The Berkshire Eagle, and friend of Buntology Mike Foster. Mike is a very down guy.

We found ourselves at the Grille, a little bar on Summer Street in Adams. The beers were cheap and the boys were cool - why didn't we know about this place before? One of Mike's friends, Al Taylor, told us his band, The Damaged, was playing a show at Cafe Latino the following night. When Ange found out it was a punk kind of band, she was down. And when I found out my favorite editor at The Eagle, Kevin, was in the band, I was down as well. (Jack was going to Boston.)

Cafe Latino is a hip restaurant / bar located in Building 11 of Mass MoCA, a world-famous contemporary art museum down the street from our house. No, seriously. Seriously it's world-famous and seriously it's down the street from our house. And we are ids because we almost never go there.

Alicia and I got there for the beginning of the show at 10 p.m. with Newcastles and Sam Adams hidden in our purse. (Sorry, the drinks there were absurdly expensive, and we're in a recession.) The Sam Adams ended up being a poor choice because they're so dark and hard to chug in a bathroom. The Newcastles went down smooth as honey, though.

The first band on the bill (whose name escapes me) was fine. Slap on a leather jacket and play three chords as fast as you can and sure you sound "punk," but song quality was lacking. The second band on the bill was The Damaged and they were legit as hell. They had great energy, well-structured catchy-ass songs and a loyal fan base.

Yeah they did - the band guys and their fans are all from North County, which means they would prettyyy much die/kill for each other. Kevin and his brother, Colin, the lead singer of The Damaged, are from Adams. So is Mike Foster. Those guys are tiiiight.

I found myself not wanting to leave to go pee (I was slightly intoxicated) because I didn't want to miss any of the set. About 2/3rds of the way through the show the band decided to make up a song on the spot. They asked the audience to give them three letters from A-F to make up the chord structure and then they asked for a topic to which I replied "smokin' weed!" Fo' sho'.

I find it interesting that Angela uses the phrase "replied." She didn't "reply"; she screamed "SMOKING WEEEEEEED at the top of her lungs. At my editor's band.

They played a few more songs and ended their set, despite the crowd chanting for more. The third "headlining" band came on shortly after and nobody cared. Legit, there was nobody watching save for me and this sleazy "lemme be yo manager" type dude.

After the show, Alicia and I talked to the band and got some free swag!

Kev hooked us up with T-shirts and CDs and, my favorite, guitar picks. I was trying pretty hard not to act like a fan girl, but c'mon - these guys were too good. Kevin was a fanastic guitar player. Before, I kind of figured he would be OK. Half the guys I work with play guitar and all of them say they're good. Whatever whatever. But I was surprised and delighted to find out Kevin really IS good! And his band is mad cool. We partied a little bit with Al Friday / Saturday and had a blast. Ange and I are definitely gonna creep around and go to their next show. Sorry Kevin / Al. We're groupies now.

Hell yes. Basically we are huge groupies.