"It's been a long time since I've been able to say this. Berkeley, California!" shouted Billie Joe Armstrong to his screaming hometown crowd at The Greek Theater on April 16, blowing kisses to the audience.

If life were fair, Eric Michael Gillett would be a Broadway or Metropolitan Opera superstar choosing between the kinds of roles formerly offered to Alfred Drake, Robert Preston, John Raitt, or, more recently, Michael Crawford, before he turned into a 350-pound canary.

BayFest 2012 is upon us this weekend! Featuring musical acts of just about every genre imaginable on seven different stages in downtown Mobile from Friday, October 5th through Sunday, October 7th, BayFest offers up something for everyone.

Hailing from the California Bay Area, the two frontmen, Corbett Redford, vocals, and Dan Abbott, guitar and vocals, are living proof music can be fun, entertaining and serious as hell, wrapped in a package where the audience has no choice but to dance.

It may have been a simple twist of fate that gave us Ringo Starr, arguably the most influential rock drummer of all time. Or perhaps it was always meant to be. Either way, we almost didn't have Richard Starkey (aka Ringo Starr) with us.

You'd think after a band supporter offered to let them crash at his place after a show in the Ohio suburbs, only to have that same supporter pull guns out on them after they got to his house, the guys in Honah Lee would be a bit shaken by the memory, but no.

My exposure to classical music was limited, by choice, and Beethoven was little more than a key "droogie" in A Clockwork Orange. But then, as I approached my 60th birthday, something happened. My life has gone from "Roll Over, Beethoven" to just... Beethoven.

We can all appreciate something to get behind, whether it's a team or a band. In fact, one of the best parts of rock and roll is the community that comes up around it.