Things Come Full Circle: Rosegarden Funeral Party — One Of The Last Bands To Play Deep Ellum Pre-Shutdowns — Rocked Three Links With Noogy On Friday.
All photos by Mike Brooks.
A few fits and starts aside, the lights have been mostly off at Deep Ellum’s beloved Three Links since last March. But, rather gloriously this past weekend, they finally sparked back on.
One year and three days after Three Links’ last real show in the pre-pandemic Before Times, many of the same performers returned to its stage for a Friday night that many hope marks the official start of the… dare we call it After Party?
In front of a masked-up and limited-capacity crowd, Rosegarden Funeral Party and Noogy — bands who share members with that last bill of Highlife, Calculated Chaos and Periods — revved live music back into gear in a big way, bringing high-energy sets to close friends, fans and collaborators who couldn’t have been happier to see them back up on the stage, doing their thing.
After a rousing and invigorating opening offering from the ever-snotty local punks in Noogy, moody area post-punk favorites Rosegarden Funeral Party’s own first show on this stage since March 10, 2020, similarly proved a rather euphoric and cathartic display. For performers and crowd members alike, things seemed to quickly click into their grooves — as if no beats were skipped, although we all know that not to be the case.
Granted, the pandemic woods haven’t been completely cleared yet. But with COVID-19 vaccines starting to get rolled out and music back on Deep Ellum stages rocking again, Friday night sure felt like a burst of sunshine finally breaking through the limbs.
Just check out the people captured in the slideshow of images at the top of this post, passed along by ace Dallas music photographer Mike Brooks. They more than capably show off the sense of relief we mean — and, honestly, felt ourselves, too.