This show had been booked for ages, long before it was announced that the Berkeley was shutting down its big music room and outstanding roots music booker Marianne Taylor was moving over to Southland Ballroom (making that venue a place to watch, for the first time, outside of the Vaudevillain Revue) — but it would have been hard to pick a better, more appropriate show to close down the Berkeley, in the end, that SCOTS playing to a sweaty and cheerful packed house. Like I said when I wrote about them a few weeks ago, I’d never seen them, and never really delved into their music, before this year, but what a fun show. What a fun crowd. A strange mix of rockabilly folk and bros in fedoras and ladies in sassy sundresses, and they all loved this band. That’s the kind of goodbye party the Berkeley deserved, and got.

And SCOTS were wicked fun — they are what they always have been, which is a supremely talented Southern surfabilly band, who bring a huge amount of energy to the stage and have a sassy badass lady bassist. A full house, a great long-standing band who have played the venue innumerable times, you can’t go wrong by closing a place down like that.

Shout out to the dude whose name I don’t remember from a few years ago, who tried to win me over by putting SCOTS’ ‘Liquored Up (And Lacquered Down)’ on a mix for me. It didn’t work, but your heart was in the right place, sir.

Full set here.