About a week ago we had the annual Amber Birthday Celebration, but there’s still part of the celebration to continue tonight!

One of Amber’s favorite bands is The Mountain Goats and when it was announced that they were coming to Peoria a week after her birthday, I said I’d buy tickets and it could be part of the annual Amber Birthday Extravaganza!

Tonight is the night of the show, The Mountain Goats are playing at Crusens on Farmington Road and the doors open up at 6pm, so I thought I’d pick up a pizza dinner that we could eat in the Joan Jett Dining Room at MBIP World Headquarters before the show…and so that’s exactly what we’re going to do!

Let’s go get that pizza pie!

Here we are at Nick-N-Willy’s Pizza and we’re getting a very special pizza from here. Let’s go in and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.

Here is that aforementioned pizza, The Wombacher!

Yes, Nick-N-Willy’s has a pizza they’ve named after Yours Fooly! If you’ve never had one, you should stop in and try one out, I’ll be showing it in a minute, keep on scrolling!

Here’s my friend, Brennen who has worked here for quite a while. In addition to working here at Nick-N-Willy’s, he’s also part of the team at Wild Routed, which we featured last summer in this MBIP post.

Great to see, Brennen, as always!

Okay, we’re back at the Joan Jett Dining Room at the MBIP World Headquarters and the table is all set for our festive pre-show dinner.

Here’s our special dinner guests for the evening, my friends Amber and Joe!

They’re both looking fabulous and it’s always fun to have them over for a few drinks and for dinner this week as we celebrate part II of the Amber Birthday Extravaganza!

And here is what we had for dinner.

There’s the Wombacher Pizza which is a spectacular, one-of-a-kind tasty pizza, only available at Nick-N-Willy’s, it’s kind of like eating this blog, but a lot tastier!

We also got an order of their homemade garlic bread with marinara sauce and we got an order of their baked chicken wings which are tasty and have just the right amount of spice and zing!

There’s Amber and Joe enjoying our feast from Nick-N-Willy’s.

And now, it’s off to the show!

Boom, here we are at Crusens on Farmington Road, check out the sign, how did they know this was the continuing celebration of Amber’s Birthday?

I tried to get a shot of the front of the building, but The Mountain Goats tour bus was parked in front, blocking the view. Hey, I know you guys have a show to do, but I’ve got a blog to do over here! Sheesh!

Here we are inside. There’s the bar on one side and there’s tables and chairs across the room in an elevated area.

There’s the crowd on the ground level waiting for the show to start.

And just like that, The Mountain Goats come onstage and the show for the evening begins!

The Mountain Goats have been around since the early ‘90’s and the band was started by singer/songwriter, John Darnielle.

The current line-up is: John Darniell, vocals, guitar and keyboards; Matt Douglas, bass, keyboards, saxophone, guitar and backing vocals and Jon Wurster, drums and percussion.

They’re a fantastic band with wonderful original songs and tonight’s show is fabulous!

The show was very energetic and fun and the crowd really got into it!

The band has a really full sound for a three piece band. Both John and Matt switched insturments and Jon is a powerful drummer and percussionist.

What a fabulous live show by The Mountain Goats. A splendid time was had by all in attendance!

And now the party is over as the stage gets put away after the show.

Check out the two bracelets given to me by a nice woman in the crowd. She didn’t want her picture taken, but told me her children made these for her to pass out to people in the crowd.

Amber, Joe and I happily accepted and wore these cool bracelets! I still have mine on!