Buzzed Meg's show was actually the final act of a four hour benefit show for "The Center," an Asbury Park AIDS support organization, also acoustic sets by local performers Susan Renner, Heather Eatman, and probably the most well known of the performers, Richard Barone, formerly of the Bongos. Another act slated to appear, Trash Mavericks, was a no show, leaving Buzzed Meg as the only electric act on the bill.

Buzzed Meg is basically the same band who played at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, NJ. in March of 1996 as "The Don Wands." Jim Babjak on guitar, Dennis Diken on drums, with Kurt Reil of the Grip Weeds on vocals, percussion and acoustic guitar, and Vince Grogan, now also of the Grip Weeds on bass. One notable change was the absence of Rick Reil, who played rhythm guitar for the Wands show. He was replaced by keyboardist Billy Maryniak, fresh off the plane from Chicago, who's previously played with Jim and Pat DiNizio during their "Wild Bunch" excursion last year, and also participated in the recording of the Smithereens' forthcoming cover of Springsteen's "Downbound Train."

The show was very similar in content to the Don Wands performance, down to the order of the first several songs, and the choices of cover material. Exceptions were a new Babjak original, the rave-up "You Get Me So Excited," which Jim had just finished writing the week before the show, a great stab at Van Morrison and Them's "I Can Only Give You Everything," which is best known lately as providing the main fuzz guitar riff for Beck's "Devil's Haircut" (Ten points: What is the Beck/Smithereens connection?). Jim almost introduced the song as a Beck cover, before explaining it's actual origins. The final encore featured a guest appearance by Richard Barone, who provided a nice McCartney-esq vocal to Kurt Reil's Lennon on "Please Please Me."

One surprise was the absence of "The Buzzed Meg Theme," the band's only released recording to date.

Over all, a much tighter, and smoother performance than last year's Don Wands gig, though Reil still had trouble remembering the words, and Jim admittedly was a bit nervous and found it hard to concentrate on his guitar playing at times. Maryniak's keyboards floated nicely over the top of the whole mix, and Dennis Diken, as usual, was a whirlwind on the drums. He and Grogan provided a rock solid rhythm section, which held the whole thing together.

For you guitar hero worshippers who can't sleep until you know what kind of equipment Jim used on stage (like me!), Jim played his "Max" Telecaster through most of the show, and also played a back-up Tele, as well as his brown sunburst Stratocaster, which was tuned in advance to the open tuning for "When I Was Young," eliminating the long tuning problems he'd had at the Wands gig with the same song. He played through a Marshall head and speaker, plugged through a Precision Electronics "Yardbox" guitar effect pedal, which is meant to give your guitar a Jimmy Page "Yardbirds" sound.