I love Ballard Seafood Fest. I always have, but I’m especially biased now as we live smack dab in the middle of it and don’t have to deal with festival transport or parking. My kid climbed over giant inflatables and scored major schwag, I got some killer crab cakes from the Hi-Life booth, there was much fun and family bonding.But the real rejoicing came later when kid-free and boozed-up I returned to the Fest for The Squirrels, the grand old stoner band of musically adept cutups slinging rock-n-roll mashups. My favorite of this particular set was a raucous cover of Judas Priest’s “Living After Midnight” with Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’…” lyrics. The Squirrels have been doing what they do for a long time and they know how to work the crowd. Lead singer Rob “Capt.” Morgan cavorted through the audience, and at one point brought some, um, local color onstage for an impromptu scarf dance. The show, needless to say, rocked.

The Squirrels always deliver and yet you never know what to expect. I ran into Capt. Morgan before the show and he said they were on their tenth set list of the day (a problem oddly eventually solved when they asked Reggie Jackson to pull names out of a hat).

[OK, it’s a pretty obscure reference, but those that get it are rolling right now. And I admit I’m only one because I’ve got a regular man-date with three friends to barbeque meat and watch The Bronx is Burning miniseries on ESPN (the flipside of the coin from Lifetime and Haagen Dazs), which I recommend if only to watch John Turturro aim for Billy Martin but actually land on Dobby the House-elf and because Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson is bacon in the fryin’ pan.]

There are just two guaranteed (though other gigs do arise) times to see the Squirrels - their annual XXXmas X-travaganza and the Ballard Seafood Fest. That they recognize the awesomeness of the Ballard Seafood Fest and have played it for thirteen years running is just one of the many reasons I love the Squirrels. Another is the genius of The Not-So-Bright Side of the Moon, though, really, you’ve gotta see them live.

The biggest reason I love them? When I lived in San Francisco for a short time, a group of friends took me to Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin. Giant swingin’ chorus with great soloists, formidable preacher with a message of tolerance and inclusiveness, like nothing I’d ever seen, and I left thinking “THIS is how I should feel when I leave church.”

When I left the Squirrels show Saturday, I was thinking “THIS is how I should feel after rock-n-roll.”