Jack Black Did Not Appear

When Little Rock had its finals for the Battle of the Bands, I couldn't help but picture School of Rock. Turns out I ventured out to Vino's Brewpub to find a distinct lack of whimsically talented elementary school kids. Instead it was a fascinating melange of good beer and human drama, and a great start to seeing if Little Rock is the Portland Of The Midwest. By the time I realized that Vino's was hosting and found out where it was, I missed the first couple of bands. Oh well. On to the evening:

I showed up around 9:30 and they have a menu that is pretty much pizza and calzones and about a dozen beers on tap (6 of which were brewed in house). The combination pizza had a tasteless crust and green olives. Seriously? Green olives? Maybe the rest of the menu is better, but the initial impression was underwhelming. The beer, on the other hand, was a step in the right direction.


1) Pinnacle IPA (Vino's Brewpub) - Light brown color, but more of a California pale ale than a true IPA. I might be a little biased toward overly hopped IPA's though being a West Coast native. I'd give it a 7/10, but not much more.

2) Razor Bock (Vino's Brewpub) - Smooth, brown, rich and delicious. I'd drink this again gladly and it's probably around an 8 out of 10 beer. I'd come back just for another pint.

It's a good thing the beer was good, because the first band was painful. "Buddha Stomp" was apparently the local favorite which may have been because they had brought their families. The crowd (at least where I was sitting) was a mix, but heavily featured middle aged people in khakis and earplugs standing next to 8 or 9 year-olds holding their ears and mouthing "can we go home now." Oh, and two guys who each weighed, without exaggeration, about 400 pounds apiece (more on them later). This band was at best mediocre, deafening, and did a metal cover of "Pants On The Ground." Who does a cover at Battle of the Bands? Weak.


"Sound of the Mountain" was from out of town and their fans don't travel. Which was a shame because they were actually musically interesting. Unfortunately they are all instrumental progressive rock and songs without lyrics will only get you so far with a crowd related to the band you just followed.

I was willing to wait for the last band since the beer was tasty, but while the stage was getting set up, I saw the first of the aforementioned large men swaying back and forth with one hand on the other guy's shoulder to stay standing. You know that point of drunk when occasionally the room moves unexpectedly so you step back really quick to keep from falling? Fatty #1 made that move, followed by a lot of spitting. Indoors. Yeah, you know what happens when you're so drunk that you can't even swallow your own spit. Indoors. Well, his brother left the room so he sat down which started a two minute countdown to ... you guessed it ... throwing up. Indoors.

The bouncer was alerted, who weighed maybe 180 pounds, and in a feat reminiscent of a mother lifting a car off of her child, hoisted this 400 pound dead weight of drunk behemoth to his feet and dragged him outside. Impressive. But not enough to keep me around for the third band, so I have no idea who won. And I'm OK with that.