Tonight marks the 20th anniversary of the first time I saw the Afghan Whigs live on stage. They were part of a quadruple-bill at Dayton, Ohio’s Hara Arena that also featured Guided By Voices, New Bomb Turks, and headliners the Breeders. A local TV legend, The Cool Ghoul, was the emcee for the event.

My best friend Robbie had been raving about the Afghan Whigs for months, when this show was announced he insisted I go see it and we bought our tickets right away. You can read more about my obsession with that record here.

At one point, the Afghan Whigs interpolated lyrics of a Prince song into one of their own and Robbie seemed shocked that I knew it as I sang along. I was like, “This is a Prince song!”

Since that night I have probably seen the Afghan Whigs at least 20 times, most recently in October 2012 at the Varsity when they reunited after many years for a few tour dates. And they still work Prince in there now and then!

Their new record, Do to the Beast, will be out in less than a month! Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about it.