Up front: 11pm is a late set for me, even on a Thursday, even in Carrboro three minutes from my house, but I’d been hearing great things about the Magnolia Collective’s residency at the Station for months, from various people (okay, including some people that I talk to but whose opinions are suspect, but mostly people I trust!), and for particular reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I finally got out to see them play last night. They’re all great musicians who play a tight set of well-chosen covers to a crowd that wants to sing and dance, and, man, they closed with “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, which is one of my all-time favorite songs and they knocked it out of the park. Everybody who plays with them has other gigs, other bands — but sometimes, I guess, all the really talented musicians in the Triangle just want to get together and be a rockin’ cover band to a cheerful weekend crowd. And I dig the hell out of that.

I was up way too late, and I didn’t mind a bit.