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Talk about those bad, bad girls and boys that they call friends. And a second band that Phil’s the role, and doesn’t shoot Blanks, when opening up the music at Somerset’s Pea Soup Days, for Bad Girlfriends, this weekend.

Pea Soup Days in Somerset features two musical groups, one that’s collected rave reviews locally and around the broader region for years, and the other, while well established, hitting their home turf as a debut in the village.
The festival runs this Thursday through Sunday, June 9-12.
Phil and the Blanks serve the role of the fest’s musical opening act on Friday night, and the ultimate killer band of both the sexes, Bad Girlfriends follows on Saturday night. Phil as the good doctor, in onstage banter, might have a few things to say about those bad girls and boys following him.
Phil will front his New Richmond-based band when it treks down the way to Somerset, a hometown of one of the members, and play there for the first time. Look out Ozzfest!
Their covers include The Eagles, Beatles, Doobie Brothers and Eric Clapton, so their sound can be guitar-driven or have other focuses, and vary from a bit heavy to light rock.
They also will go around again with a new set of their originals. That’s right, the second time around with that.
And they may indeed wear their sunglasses at night — like in some of their cover art — come the second set, as the show simply smolders.
Bad Girlfriends rocks and also dips into country, classic and current, and there is a fiddle player in the band, prominently placed onstage.
They also step out of the normal cover band realm and deliver a powerful performance, of course, and you could say epic, of music by the Tran-Siberian Orchestra. They also have enough vocalists, multiples of both genders, to rip through a diverse set list that goes beyond the standards and includes the likes of Dropkick Murphy’s, Joan Jett and Elle King.
Rocker Tommy D has four different tasks with the band and bears resemblance to Axl Rose, often complete with a Bad-Ass headband, as the Bad Girlfriends do covers of that group. And to my buddy Tommy B and his cool Axl imitation, with hands all around the mic and/or harmonica, you’ve got some competition.
Music starts at 8 p.m.
The annual parade features the Somerset Marching Band, an announcer’s area in front of the Village Hall, and has almost 40 entries, which will take a new route through the village.
Grand marshal is Dave Bracht a longtime community supporter, as he started the bi-annual Haunted Hayride and the circus that comes to Somerset every other summer, so show him some love by attending various of those events. He is a former president of the Somerset Lions Club and founding member. He is the owner of Dave Bracht Real Estate.
The lineup of the golf tournament, held at Bristol Ridge, is complete and the softball tournament brackets were recently posted on the Pea Soup web page.

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