I finally saw the Swing­ing John­sons last night at the Com­mon Ground. This four piece band is a pre­ci­sion, high-energy juke­box of rock that will play any song whose title you can shout loud enough to be heard.

Well, nearly any­thing. A con­ver­sa­tion with the bassist dur­ing the first break revealed that Radio­head is out of the pic­ture, as they will only play songs writ­ten before 1987. What’s so spe­cial about 1987? “Well, approx­i­mately 1987. We had to cut it off some­where.” Nonethe­less, they will play any song writ­ten before 1987, whether it be Dave Brubeck or Creedence.

Mad props were assigned for a cou­ple of solid Doo­bie Broth­ers cov­ers, thought­fully start­ing “Free Bird” (a request from a red-faced townie in a Laborer’s Local 223 sweat­shirt) a mere 8 bars before the gui­tar solo, acqui­esc­ing to my demands to play “Super­sti­tion,” and the note-perfect bass solo in “You Can Call Me Al.”