The Minus Five - Chicago, IL

Scott McCaughey is a scruffy, lovable, fun-loving guy and The Minus Five, the band he leads, are one of the best bar bands to ever craft a bunch of spectacular albums filled with crafty lyrics and seasoned playing. The fun the band exudes, their easy-going demeanor live might make some think that they don't take their craft seriously. But as the band's catalogue, including their most recent, self-titled release, would indicate, McCaughey and company (here including John Ramberg on guitar, Peter Buck on bass, and Bill Rieflin on drums) are pop wizards conjuring songs filled with nuance, sly humor, and impeccable playing.

But yeah, live they're a bar band, albeit a highly trained and regarded bar band. McCaughey is a consummate showman, tossing off one-liners and personal asides as if he were Henny Youngman. When introducing "Retrieval Of You," a song off of the band's Down With Wilco album from 2003, McCaughey said that Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco and co-writer of the song, told him there really was a "DJ Mini-Mart" around the area of the Abbey Pub and asked the crowd if they knew of it. No one had heard of it. "He's lying, then?" An audience member yelled out, "He's a liar!" Which brought a big smile to McCaughey's face, followed by him yelling out "Jeff Tweedy's a liar!!" and then renaming the song thusly.

After running through a rousing version of the new album's "With A Gun," a song that features the members of Wilco and Tweedy in particular doing the song's guitar solo, which McCaughey undertook live, he said, "I finally got to show off my chops on lead guitar. There was an article when we played in Portland a couple of weeks ago that said I had 'chops.' Never has an article been so wrong." Don't be too quick to judge yourself, Scott. You and the rest of The Minus Five did a great job of showing off your "chops" to the fans in Chicago.