Friday night at the Pageant was like stepping back in time for a show at Mississippi Nights with The Urge, Fragile Porcelain Mice, and Sinister Dane. The annual Thanksgiving show has become as ingrained into St. Louis as toasted ravioli and St. Louis style pizza. Tonight would be the first time in around twenty years that Sinister Dane would be taking the stage.

Fragile Porcelain Mice kicked things off with the bass heavy ‘Stale’ and working their way through six of the first seven songs off of 1996’s ‘Frostbidding’ Around this time Scott Randall took a seat at the lip of the stage and told the crowd that they would not be here today without the support of both The Urge and Sinister Dane. He was not sure if the two bands had wanted to piss off fans by having them open for them after seeing them perform in front of Tens of people. Joking with the crowd he said he didn’t know if everyone knew that his cocaine habit had been getting bad and that’s why they set up the merch booth next to the men’s bathroom as they had made an arrangement with the Pageant to have one of the band members, most likely hi, give out handys before buying some merch. I have had Scott Randall as a substitute teacher back in the mid 90s at Belleville West and seeing him teach and then performing on stage is like watching another personality take over the driver seat. By the time that band closed their set with fan favorite ‘Concept of Grief’ I was already starting to get a sore throat from singing along at the top of my lungs with the rest of the fans.

It didn’t take long after Fragile left the stage that you could start hearing small groups of people start chanting ‘Play that Mother Fucking Urge Shit’ and slowly the chanting built up till the lights went out and The Urge took the stage. From the opening guitar rift of ‘Brainless’ the crowd erupted and not just in the pit. Even the band runs around the stage in a circle pumping up the crowd and getting themselves ready for a high energy show. I witnessed several small groups of forty something men start moshing with their friends recapturing their youth. Around the middle of the set a guy next to me asked his friend if they were going to the liquor store and sure enough the band kicked into the sing along ‘Liquor Store’. By this point my voice was shot and had to refrain from anymore sing along.  As has become tradition at Urge shows the band slowed things down with a cover of ‘One Love’ by Bob Marley and the Wailers. The band closed the night down with their cover of Gang Star’s ‘It’s Gettin’ Hectic’.