It was another chapter for Easy Street Records in The Junction in the rock ‘n’ roll history books: A raucous conclusion to Record Store Day 2015, with legendary, regrouped The Sonics performing a benefit show announced only a day and a half earlier:
If you don’t know their backstory – which spans half a century, and then some – this might help.
The benefit was for KEXP’s new HQ, with tickets at $100 each – and it was promised that surprise guests would make the price more than worth it. We couldn’t stay past the first few songs and are excruciatingly regretful to have missed said guests, who turned out to include Eddie Vedder (photo, photo) and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, Chris Ballew (photo) from The Presidents, Matt Lukin (photo) from Mudhoney and The Melvins, Emily Nokes (photo) from Tacocat … and more. Video of the guest performances will certainly surface – KEXP was shooting, as were countless phone-hoisting showgoers. The Sonics, meantime, are touring to support their first record in half a century, “This Is The Sonics,” which brought them to ESR just last month for a signing party.
ADDED 11:34 AM: No one else had uploaded to YouTube by the time we went off duty this morning, but that’s changed since then. Thanks to those who pointed this out to us – the upload is by @marnankev2:
ADDED 1:48 PM: Another perspective – during the show, outside Easy Street. Artist Joshua Boulet says he was in The Junction to catch the Route 50 bus when he drew the crowd:
He also made a quick drawing of Junction-based Seattle Fire Engine 32, which was outside for a while (it left the same time we did) on safety patrol:
(You might recall his drawing of SFD firefighters at work in our coverage of a Beach Drive fire last fall.)
ADDED SUNDAY NIGHT: Charles R. Cross‘s review of the “magic night” is up at SeattleTimes.com.
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