As we approached Riverfront Live we noticed cars parked along the edge of Lunken Airport. “There must be an event!” I said without knowing right away, that all of these people were going to see the Violent Femmes too.
Our last concert before lockdown was Bear Hands at Riverfront Live and it was by no means large. How on earth could they fit all these people in that venue, I wondered?
Welp, turns out there’s a large empty lot behind the venue along the river!
(Run on sentence alert) The big lot was filled with a crowd of people I did not hang out with in high school when discovering Violent Femmes and tried to sing their praises but Rush was somehow the most popular and whatever.
This crowd combined all the outsiders from the Tri-state area that liked the Femmes. And they liked to smoke, vape and have a good time.
If I had hindsight and gumption I would’ve begged to set up a photo booth for t-shirt documentation.
There were so many cool t-shirts.
The band was in fine form as well, playing their first and second albums from start to finish all the way through. The sound wasn’t great, but the vibe was kind of weirdly magical. We left before the encore and realized the mix was 3000% better in the parking lot.
But you wouldn’t have been able to seen all the good stuff from there.
