The A.V. Club’s Twin Cities New Year’s Eve guide
Best place to see a nonpretentious rock show:
400 Bar: Sick of 2011 News Years Eve, 8:30 p.m., $11, 18+
Sick of Sarah, Pony Up, Young & Tender
You don’t want a bunch of high-brow pomp and circumstance dulling your NYE experience, and the 400 Bar might hold the title of the local venue with its head least up its own b-hole. Throw in three straight-faced rock bands and you might just have a non-ironic blowout on your hands.
Best place to ride free chillwaves:
Cause: Mystery Palace EP Release, 9 p.m., no cover, 21+
With Hot Freaks, Dial-Up
Maybe you’re the laid-back type, and you just want to spend the final hours of 2011 sipping a G&T and being whispered at by a chill local group. Good news: Cause Spirits And Sound is hosting Mystery Palace’s special EP release show on NYE, and it’s gonna be mad smooth.
Best place to be groped by a college freshman:
First Avenue: First Avenue’s New Year’s Eve Danceteria, 8 p.m., $5/$20, 18+
Get Cryphy!, Sovietpanda, Roy Freedom, DJ Smitty, DJ Verb X, Ian Rans
You’ve been feeling unattractive lately, what with the winter weight piling on and your complexion deteriorating into a color that Martha Stewart might call “linen.” But that doesn’t mean you have to be alone on New Year’s! Simply visit your downtown danceteria, where there will be piles of 19-year-olds so excited/scared to spend their first major holiday away from home that, no matter the level of your pastiness, you WILL be snatched at by a grubby little hand or two with an X on it.
Best place to take your sister’s hyperactive kids:
7th Street Entry: Mark Mallman’s New Year’s Eve in 3D
4 p.m.: $10, all ages. Koo Koo Kanga Roo and General B & The Wiz
9 p.m.: $12, 18+. Koo Koo Kanga Roo and Sexcat
Don’t think you can’t have fun this NYE just because you’ve been saddled with looking after the caterwauling bags of saliva that are your nieces and/or nephews? Local superstar Mark Mallman, with the aid of kids’ band Koo Koo Kanga Roo, will wear out even the most energetic of tots. And after you return the exhausted lil whippersnappers to the stable, you can come back for the adults-only late show, during which the bands will say swear words.
Best place to contemplate a life on the prairie:
Varsity Theater: Dawes, 8 p.m., $31 (sold out), 18+
Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps, Red Daughters
You have a rich internal life in which you often fantasize about long, deserted stretches of highway cutting through vast, flat grasslands, but you’ve been looking for something a little more upbeat than the Boss’ Nebraska to use as a mental soundtrack. Consider the folk-rock stylings of Dawes, who will be playing the Varsity on the 31st, with support from equally folky/rocky local faves Caroline Smith and Red Daughters.
Best place to have your eardrums violated:
Triple Rock Social Club: 4onthefloor, 9 p.m., $15, 21+
Ah, the Triple Rock. Come in early for a nice mock duck hoagie, and then head over to the music venue part of the building for a performance by The 4onthefloor, whose quadruple bass drum performance dynamic is perhaps the most successful musical gimmick since Tiny Tim.
Best place to occupy a condiment:
Honey: “Occupy Honey” New Year’s Eve Bash, 9 p.m., $10, 21+
DJ Flipstyle, King Otto
In what’s sure to be the first-ish of countless marketing ploys to glibly take advantage of a certain rash of recent economy-focused protests, fancy local bar/venue Honey invites you to spend New Year‘s “occupying” its interior space. Oh, and buying drinks.
Best place to laugh through the pain:
Bryant Lake Bowl:
Baby New Year’s Time Traveling Diaper Party with Comedy Suitcase, 5 & 7 p.m., $12/$14, all ages
and
The Year in Denial: The Scrimshaw Brothers’ New Year’s Eve Comedy Extravaganza!, 9 & 11 p.m., $15/$20, 18+
Perhaps no other calendar day signifies time’s relentless march and its effects on your withering corpse than December 31. Maybe it’s better just to push those contemplations of your morality down and try to enjoy a little old-fashioned laughter. Bryant Lake Bowl, the bowling alley that’s also a restaurant and comedy venue, has you covered with four shows by two zany comedy teams that are guaranteed to make you forget you’ll soon be dead and forgotten.
Best place to stage a Color Me Badd reunion:
331 Club: Whoomp! There It is IV, 10 p.m., no cover, 21+
Dr. Dallas Dog-Palace, MC Hang Time, DJ Tanner
New Year’s is really all about staring the future dead in its face, and frankly, that’s a pretty terrifying prospect for a lot of people out there. That’s where the 331 Club comes in with its fourth-annual ’90s dance party where you can gleefully pretend to prepare for eight years of the Clinton administration while putting your jeans on backwards like you’re straight out of a Kris Kross video. If all goes well, there might be Jock Jams.
Best place to pretend like you’re a yuppie:
Dakota Jazz Club: New Year’s With Davina & The Vagabonds, 5p.m. & 10 p.m., $75, 21+
$75 might sound like an awful lot of money compared to some of the other New Year’s events, but it’s a small price to pay for a more sophisticated clientele who’d like to kick off its 2012 in a way that’s a little less LMFAO and a little more B.B. King. In addition to the musical stylings of Davina & The Vagabonds, the price tag also includes an à la carte menu, a $20 food and beverage credit, as well as a midnight champagne toast and party favors. Jazz was always meant to be heard alongside noisemakers.
Best place to get socially-conscious, yo:
Nomad World Pub: Hip-Hop New Year’s Eve Party, 9 p.m., no cover, 21+
I-Self Devine, Carnage, Conflict of Interest
Whoever said New Year’s was solely about partying? Certainly not Rhymesayer’s I-Self Devine, who’ll take the Nomad’s stage to remind us all that December 31 is just another stop in the daily grind we call life.
Best place to watch people hit things against PVC piping:
Cedar Cultural Center: That 1 Guy’s New Year’s Eve Concert with Savage Aural Hotbed, 8 p.m., $25, all ages
If you thought one-man bands only existed on street corners in Little Italy in the minds of cartoonists, you’d be wrong, especially considering that That 1 Guy has been pushing the limits of what one man and one unbelievably complicated contraption can do when it comes to pushing the boundaries of funk and electronic music. Savage Aural Hotbed will also be on hand to make music out of found objects and to make us feel a lot better about never going to that production of Stomp we always meant to go to.
Best place to avoid asking questions:
Lee’s Liquor Lounge: E.L.nO., Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles, & All Tomorrow’s Petty, 9 p.m., $10/$12, 21+
We’re not exactly sure what a quirky gypsy folk band is doing playing alongside E.L.nO. and Tom Petty cover bands either, but we do know the line-up is becoming something of an annual year-end tradition at Lee’s. It must make sense to somebody!
Best place to hear soulful country music while eating a shrimp cocktail:
Mystic Lake Casino: Wynonna & The Big Noise, 7 p.m. & 10:30 p.m., $44-$55, 18+
When she’s not preoccupied with talking to Oprah about her weight loss struggles or secretly hating her younger sister, Wynonna Judd is still busy being one of country music’s most enduringly likable stars. Armed with a new band (which unfortunately doesn’t include her mother and her never-ending stream of prom dresses), Wynonna is hitting the casino circuit and will surely be ringing in the new year with a bountiful supply of lip snarls and some of the orangest hair you’ll ever set eyes on.
Best place to hear cover bands that doesn’t have a cover:
Turf Club: New Year’s Eve at the Turf, 8 p.m., no cover, 21+
We don’t want to get anyone too excited, but the Turf Club is promising not one, not two, but four cover bands for the price of none this New Year’s. Stnnng will be performing as AC/DC (which better mean short pants), Leisure Birds will take care of all your Troggs needs, while Claps will be busy getting all dark and sinister while doing their best New Order impression. According to the Turf’s website, Seawhores still haven’t decided which band they’re planning to play tribute to, which hopefully means they’re going to eventually settle on Blackstreet.
Best place to have a unitard-clad crotch rubbed in your face:
Epic Event Center: Mystique 2012: Le Cirque, 9 p.m., $30, 21+
Coming off last year’s successful masquerade ball, Epic is once again trying to corner the New Year’s market when it comes to highfalutin shenanigans, with this year’s circus-themed event promising to be “the dividing line between reality and fantasy.” That’s a pretty fancy way to say they’ll be serving a bunch of specialty cocktails to girls in bandage dresses while acrobats swirl around your head, but considering Epic is also advertising an edgy fashion show, we’ll at least say your chances of seeing a studded bra or underpant are high.
Best place to run into your parents:
Treasure Island Casino: REO Speedwagon, 9 p.m., $50-$60, 18+
Hey, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Debbie need a place to spend New Year’s, too, and since we can’t exactly trust Ryan Seacrest to take on Dick Clark’s job, we’re just glad they left the house. Plus, we wouldn’t want to take away Dad’s big chance to show off his vintage Member’s Only jacket, although we do hope he looks away when Mom feels the urge to throw her Vicky’s Secret panties onstage. What can we say? They just can’t fight this feeling.
Best place for people with large heads:
Burnsville Performing Arts Center: Laugh Out Loud New Year’s Eve with Louie Anderson, 7:30 p.m. & 10 p.m., $59.95, all ages
Louie Anderson might not be the most famous comedian named Louie these days, but that certainly hasn’t slowed down Anderson, who once again brings his comedic approach to growing up with 10 siblings and an alcoholic father for another year of his annual New Year’s Eve stand up shows in the Twin Cities. It’s been a good 10 years since Louie was the host of Family Feud, so let’s hope all that barely contained self-loathing has worn off and attendees at least get one anecdote about the brilliant Life With Louie. Sometimes comedy comes in the form of a human foghorn.
Best place to get your RuPaul on:
Hell’s Kitchen: Grown & Sexy New Year’s Eve, 9 p.m., $10, 21+
New Year’s Eve is practically useless without a little glitter and sparkle, so what better place to dance the night away than Hell’s Kitchen’s drag and burlesque show, where glitter is practically in the entire club’s bloodstream? To paraphrase Ms. RuPaul, “2012, shantè you stay, but don’t fuck it up. 2011? Sashay away.”
Best place to have a life-changing drug experience:
Cabooze: Wookiefoot with Jon Wayne and The Pain and New Reb, 8:30 p.m., $17-$20, 18+
Maybe you’re new to the hallucinogens scene, and you’re worried about tripping balls in public, lest people take umbrage at your frog-like shroom eyes. Well, this Wookiefoot show is your chance, budding stoner (ha-ha). You don’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself in this crowd, which is all but guaranteed to be uniformly fucked up on something or other. Drive safe!
Best place to be stuck in 1998:
Memory Lanes: Dude Year’s Eve: Music from The Big Lebowski, 10 p.m., no cover, 21+
Nothing says “party” like chatting about Kenny Rogers and the First Edition with a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt who still can’t get over how fuckin’ great The Big Lebowski was. The night will almost certainly consist of bowling and CCR, interrupted frequently by Jimmy Buffett lookalikes’ calls of “SHUT THE FUCK UP, DONNY!” and “THE DUDE ABIDES!” Festivities will then be capped off by a mass recital of Sam Elliott’s famous epilogue, set to the tune of Townes Van Zandt’s drunken cover of “Dead Flowers.”
Best place to be called a bitch:
Fine Line Music Café: PROF w/ DJ Fundo, 8 p.m., $20 (sold out), 18+
It’s a misconception that all rap music is inherently misogynistic, but if you’re at all familiar with PROF, you know he says the b-word a lot. So If you’re not the type of person who enjoys hearing that word repeated ad infinitum, you might want to stay outside a pretty wide radius of the Fine Line on December 31st. If you can stand that sort of abuse, you’ll also be treated to a performance by local legend Big Zach, so that’s nice.
