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One time, one night
Bars feed, rock eager patrons
By Matthew Kaster
Published:
Monday, April 26, 2004
Downtown St. Cloud on "Thirsty Thursday," at 11 p.m. was alive and drinking. St. Cloud Thursdays bring together young and old, live music, cheap drinks and cheaper tacos.
"It's the first day of the weekend for lots of folks. I've got no classes tomorrow, man," SCSU junior Jeff Thole shouted over the crowd.
The aroma of The Press' sweet seasoned beef crunchy tacos pulled people in mobs at a time. The Press, known for 50-cent tap beers served 14 to a tray, has slowly caught on as the Thursday night taco trough.
Sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and sugary beef are all layered into a mouth-crunching hard shell taco, all for one shiny quarter. It's a sin for many downtown-goers not to check out The Press' Mexican-American taco heaven. Around here, once filled to the brim south-of-the-border style, patrons roll out to find some rock music.
A hard-rock-craving taco binge only deserves a slab of some Ded Walleye. It happened that The Red Carpet, just one door down, was serving "ded fish." The band Ded Walleye hails from Fargo, N.D. and plays at the Carpet every month or so. The band consists of bass and electric guitars, drums and a singer. They've toured with nationally acclaimed bands such as Poison, Skid Row, and Firehouse and they've found a home away from home at The Red Carpet.
"I've seen 'em here, pretty much everywhere. They pretty much flippin' rock," Matt Lepak boomed fanatically.
Just off the dance floor, the crowd developed into a party from front to back, spurting occasional handfuls of dancers like spit to a spittoon.
More rolling uncovered more rocking, body-gyrating live tunes; it was off to The Rox.
The joint was being held down by St. Cloud's own Blimp, a Led Zeppelin tribute band. The place was filled with fisting Zeppelin sing-a-long artists, beer in one hand, air guitar in the other. One woman having the time of her life owned the dance floor at first. She opened the door, however, for many others soon hit the floor. A constant flow of straggling dancers kept Blimp afloat; it was a crowd filled with cigarette and coffee stained smiles. At times it felt as if Led Zeppelin were alive and well banging away on the stage, but instead, had a shrieking woman fronting the band.
"This is awesome. (lead vocalist) Stacy wails, usually Blimp's here on Fridays," Emily Dickinson said.
Blimp appeared to know what the people loved, "bringing it all back home."
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