Crawfish fest off with a bang

Hundreds of music fans set up camp at the Sussex county fairgrounds in western New Jersey Friday and gathered in the Delta Music Experience Pavilion for the festival's firt Friday night show. The Radiators closed it out with a spectacular two-hour plus set that had the band firing on all sparkplugs. Dave Malone and Camile Baudoin exchanged crowd-thrilling guitar solos throughout, with Camile striking high notes on "Sitting On Top of the World" and "The Bottom Line." High points rang out early ("Law of the Fish") and late ("Never Let Your Fire Go Out," "Doctor Doctor"), Reggie Scanlon played a bass solo, Frank Bua was so good that Malone revisited an old theme by claiming it was the drummer's birthday, and Ed Volker revealed he'd be willing to be president for about a day and a half. The crowd demanded an encore and got an ecstatic version of "Magic Bus." This all took place over the course of a beautiful evening that seemed to add something to the musical fire. Oh yeah, the crawfish were big and spicy, Jay's silkscreened t-shirts are the best this festival has ever seen, and there are two more afternoons to go.