Big Head Todd & The Monsters in Sioux Falls November 9

Sioux Falls is getting a new entertainment option in November as The District opens it's doors on 49th Street (behind the Empire Mall) with a free show from Uncle Kracker on November 8th and then the first ticketed show the next night with Big Head Todd & The Monsters on November 9th with special guests the Kris Lager Band.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters formed in the mid 1980's in Colorado. Todd Park Mohr, Brian Nevin and Rob Squires all went to high school together and later the University of Colorado where they really started taking the music seriously. I talked to Mohr a couple of years ago before their last appearance here in Sioux Falls and he told me that the band started as a straight blues band and so many of the artists had names like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Peg Leg Howell and Little Buddy Howell that they wanted to pay homage to their heroes. Thus, Big Head Todd and the Monsters were born.

They played all around Colorado and the western states and released their debut album in 1989. They spent years traveling in their van, dubbed "The Colonel" which rang up over 400,000 miles, again proving my point about blues musicians. They all seem to travel by van and will drive 700 miles one way to play a two hour show for a couple dozen people and will treat it like they flew in on a chartered jet and played for 15,000 people. Blues musicians are just good people, plain and simple.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters went global with 1993's "Sister Sweetly" which included the hits "Bittersweet", "Circle" and "Broken Hearted Savior". Over the past 20 years, they've played all around the world. They had another huge hit with John Lee Hooker, doing Hooker's "Boom Boom" when both bands were recording in the same studios.

In 2005, they released a song called "Blue Sky" exclusively on iTunes. It was written for the space program at the request of the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery. It was also used by Senator Hillary Clinton as her campaign song during her 2008 Presidential bid.

The band also contributed a song to a Led Zeppelin tribute album several years ago and in 2011, they went into the studio as the Big Head Blues Club to record a tribute to the father of the modern blues called "100 Years of Robert Johnson" on which they played with B.B. King, Charlie Musselwhite, Ruthie Foster, Hubert Sumlin and other legends.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters have 13 albums to their credit and always put on a great show. Kris Lager Band has already been booked as a main stage performer at Sioux Falls JazzFest 2014. This is going to be a great night of music and a fun way to christen The District!

Tickets are $29.50 for main floor general admission or $40 for VIP and are available online.