Queensryche was king long before hip-hop, and their originality shown through when starting the trend of summer-solstice stagings — now followed through locally

The summer solstice is a time to party with rockers, even if you are not a Druid:
— I remember that back a few years, before hip-hop was truly king, the groundbreaking heavy metal band Queensryche added yet another innovation with a special cable concert themed totally after the summer solstice. Well, apparently that caught on, as when the solstice shone this year, on Thursday, there were all kinds of acts around the metro area who used that as a reason to perform a special gig. And that musical options included karaoke and even open mic nights. One of them was at Dick’s Bar and Grill, who conducted such a jam on the night of, and you could catch them doing it again every Thursday, such as the one coming up, and maybe get an after-the-fact bit of that summer-has-truly-arrived feel. The same is true with the open mic at the Beach Bar across the St. Croix River, only they do it every Wednesday evening — which meant they missed out on any solstice observation by one day, so go there this coming week to check out the newly arrived length of days, meaning more time to sing and play.
— Also as far as summer now here, you might want to go to Broz in River Falls and order an Eberon, a stripped bare version of drink when it comes to its ingredients, making the most of what’s there, but on its flyers showing an ancient sun complete with rays, getting back to the basics and tickling the senses like a summer breeze, they say. Also on that theme, is the mango blonde ale offered locally by the courtesy of Lift Bridge, and also sporting an interesting, if often used, logo of a Tiki head doll. And you can certainly find that blonde, in the name of summer, in that sun bleached variety.
— As far as Lift Bridge, their synergy in this area with radio’s 93-X goes beyond the Brotherhood Beer brewed for the rock station in conjunction with the Stillwater company, and touted by a sexy voiced woman in their ads. If you want both beer and babes, we suggest the annual Booze Cruise on the St. Croix River, coming up next weekend. (You can only get tickets by listening to call-in offers on their station). But they do have one bit in their ads that is over-the-top humorous, saying they’ll have a certain percentage more of various drinks — and capping it off by saying the river has 100 percent more bridges, referring of the course to the St. Croix Crossing near Stillwater that will have to be negotiated for the first time by the Booze Cruise. Nice.