In honor of the late, great Jerry Rasmussen, I’d like to present my Top 10 All-Time shows I’ve seen at the Brat Stop.
10 Pat Travers Band – Had to be mid to late 80s. Travers was still touring quite a bit and it was a good all-around show highlighted by about a 45 minute version of “Boom Boom; Out Go the Lights”
9 Matt Meyer and the Smooth Riders – Matt and the band have been performing and headlining their own weekend festival series for some time. Matt Meyer is my personal favorite local musician without question.
8 Kashmir – The premier Led Zeppelin cover band has done more than one show out there. This was maybe around 2005. By the time the show ended my brother Postal Pete was so close to the Jimmy Page dude, I think the guy was starting to worry for his safety.
7 Mortuary Girls Film Premier – This was in the Parkway Chateau but I’m adding it anyway. My buddy Rob’s daughter Crystal was in it and the movie had Dr Destruction fingerprints all over it…that was can’t miss Kenosha fun right there.
6 Jackyl – Jessie James Dupree and his group are always on and this night was no exception. The highlight of the night was when Chris Jericho’s band Fozzy stunk up the stage leading my guy BDW to utter his now famous line: “they sucked so bad I bought a T-Shirt”
5 Kenny Wayne Shepherd – I assumed it would be Blue on Black and then whatever…but it was not. Truth be told, their instrumental version of Yellow Ledbetter was absolutely lights out awesome. Much more of a quality show than I had anticipated.
4 Foghat – Of course Slow Ride and Fool for the City were awesome to see live. My favorite thing was getting there early and getting the sound check of My Babe standing directly in front of the bass guitar player with the house lights still bright.
3 Guess Who/BTO – Called the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Tour. And while there was no Burton Cummings for the Guess Who and no C.F. Turner for BTO, the show was tight, it was loud and it was wall to wall hits and the crowd absolutely loved every second of it.
2 Robin Trower – Just an awesome show. Me and my buddy Matt cleared a Dugout inside the place watching and hearing Bridge of Sighs and such an unbelievably great version of Too Rolling Stoned that my boy Matt said: “they played that song so good, I hope I never hear it again”.
1 Shinedown – All original members. Had to be like 2006 maybe. The Brat Stop had to have been breaking every fire code due to the size of the crowd. It was the 95 WIIL Rock Turkey Baster Beer Bash. Their version of 45 in tribute to Dimebag Darrell was moving. My brother, the aforementioned Postal Pete and I had to drive those dudes to the Milwaukee Airport at like 4:45 the next morning..me in the WIIL Rock Avalanche and Postal Pete in my wife’s mini-van. It was funny listening to those characters continually call the place The Brat Shop.