Jake Glenn Tribe heats up a soggy day at Wingstock

Once again, we have the annual festival of the great winged bison: Wingstock 2015. Three days of music, wings, good friends and pizza — if you aren’t into wings.

It’s put on by the folks at Buffalo Bros. on University Drive, a pizza-and-wings joint that used to have live music all the time, but it never really caught on. The restaurant still shows its support for live music, however, in this yearly event.

I wasn’t able to make it for the first day, but Saturday I showed up as Four Corners was setting up. The band — Cody Admire (guitar, vocals), Lee Allen (bass), Kris Luther (guitar) and Brady Hamilton (drums) — did some well-executed covers But for me, the highlight of the set was when rapper Big Cliff Watkins got up on stage to freestyle to Hotel California.

Up next we had Sally Majestic, with P.J. Fry (bass, vocals), Ben Napier (guitar, vocals), Tim Cowdin (drums) and Scott Vernon (guitar). It bears repeating: I’ve never seen a bad Sally show. Everyone in the place seemed to know all the words and sang along to Sally’s originals.

Closing out the night we had Poo Live Crew, a bizarre ’90s cover band featuring John Davis (vocals, guitar and keytar), John Shook (bass), Scott Rice (guitar), Dave Freeman (drums) and Jon Hendrix (percussion). The group does amusingly inappropriate cover songs. It even did Stone Cold Bush by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Monday, the rains came down and people stayed home. Pity, because under the tent at Buffalo Bros. it was nice and dry. I got a table in front of the stage in time to see the Jake Glenn Tribe, with Jake Glenn (guitar, vocals), Nathan Ziehm (drums) and Uriah Stake (bass).

For me, a live-music junkie who loves finding great bands I’ve never seen before, this was the high point of the festival. These guys can play. They did some originals and some great covers with their own spin — the Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash, the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood and the Temptations’ My Girl. All of which were fantastic.

But the originals were better, and a band this good should be doing its own music. The rhythm section was tight, and the guitar work was some of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

After the wing-eating contest, we had Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward, an Americana act consisting of Rodney Parker (guitar, vocals), Brooks Kendall (bass), Ryan Brown (guitar), Danny Skinner (guitar, accordion) and Grady Sandlin (drums).

This group is slightly country-ish, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it. There’s a hint of Tom Petty, and I liked the accordion (not something you can expect to hear me say about anyone not named Ginny Mac).

Closing out the avian/bison fest we had Impulse of Will. The band — Lee Allen (bass), John Shook (bass), Ron Geida (guitar) and Lucas White (drums) — is another cover band, sort of. It takes standard songs and smashes them beyond recognition with sheer force of musical talent.

These are some of the best musicians Funkytown has to offer, just messing around and having a good time on stage. You can’t beat that, can you?

This story was originally published May 26, 2015 at 9:25 AM with the headline "Jake Glenn Tribe heats up a soggy day at Wingstock."