The Western Elstons played Simon’s Tavern last night. They are a phenomenal band. It features Joel Patterson on lead guitar, Scott Ligon on guitar and vocals, Casey McDonough on bass and vocals, and Alex Hall on drums. John Perrin jumped in on drums last night. Just to reiterate, this band is really good, and it’s wild to live in a city where this quality of musician puts on a free show in a tiny, albeit famous, dive.

A good number of dancers showed up. We used a mix two-step and swing to match what the band threw at us. I had a few moments of terror when I got close to touching Joel Patterson’s guitar. Dancing to The Western Elston’s brought home the idea that learning to swing dance hasn’t just taught me how to dance swing, it has taught me, more generally, how to dance. Adapting swing patterns and rhythms to rock-adjacent music will no doubt work the other way around and change the way I swing dance. Sometimes, it feels great to stop trying to dance within a genre. It makes the relationship between dancer and band more fluid, and reminds me that dance is fundamentally a creative act.