The Crush

Few bands speak to the Afri-Cola and black Chuck Taylor salad days of our collective Twin Cities adolescence quite like the Crush: pop punk with a heart, a rapier wit with searing chord work, a forceful jangle that owes as much to broken strings as to impassioned strumming. The Crush's shadow still darkens the Triple Rock stage like Athenian ruins, and still elicits grinning reminiscence from the many of us who were fortunate enough to see them the first time around. For those of you still cutting your baby teeth on Triple Rock two-for-ones and polishing your Dead Kennedys buttons as though someone is looking, get yourself a dose of Minneapolis music 101 tonight—you'll emerge sweaty and elated and born again, and chances are you'll be trading high-fives with all those old timers who made you feel young and dumb while you were scanning the Cheapo racks for the new Motion City Soundtrack release. With Dear Landlord and the Steinways. 21+.
Fri., April 25, 9 p.m., 2008