Journey will play CFD ... Again.

The delay was not worth the payoff yesterday.

After several set backs, Cheyenne Frontier Days finally announced Journey as their rock act Wednesday, citing contract troubles with another band that dropped out as the reason for the delay.

CFD had pushed this announcement back several times starting in November when they failed to announce a rock band at their annual reveal party. With each passing month nothing was announced, speculation and interest continued to grow. No act would have filled that gap, but I'm sure there were others out there that would have drawn a bit more excitement than what is essentially a Journey cover band that played the exact same venue last year. 

The Toasters- Atlas Theatre 1-29-13

"This one goes out to you Cheyenne. Because living here must be a real *Explative*" -Bucket 

The Atlas was empty Tuesday evening, save for about 80 people who braved the weather on a school night to see The Toasters. Still, I'm not sure there would have been a bigger crowd even if Cheyenne wasn't an ice rink already. While they are ska legends, the Toasters are hardly name brand, especially in a place like Cheyenne.

Their case wasn't helped by a string of incoherent local openers, which were often terrible and mostly unlistenable. In their defense, when some 60-80 people (in a room built for hundreds) are there specifically to see one act, any opener is going to have a hard time  Of course that doesn't excuse the terrible NOFX ripoff set (complete with incoherent yelling and swear words) that Ackrite put up or the random collection of over-energized/unintelligible covers and originals that locals It Gets Worse put together. Touring opener Mrs. Skannotto out of New York were the one highlight of the early sets, and I have to commend them for playing with such class and skill to a room which mostly just stared and leaned on the railings.