Yo, Yo Yiggity Yo.

If you like/love/can-admit-an-appreciation-for, The Decemberists, Best Coast, The Morning After, Corrosion of Conformity, Beggars, Dance Music for Nerds, Caltrop, Americans in France, Jews & Catholics, Red Collar, Dangerous Ponies or Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, then you should LISTEN UP to WKNC 88.1 this week, because we’ve got giveaways right now for every single one of these shows. You should be listening right now.

Below is the list of shows. Read up and get down as you listen to The Revolution, waiting to see if you can win tickets to your show!

6/11 Live Nation presents The Decemberists w/ Best Coast @ The Raleigh Amphitheater

5/25 The Morning After @ Pinhook (Durham)

5/26 Corrosion of Conformity @ Cat’s Cradle (Carrboro)

5/26 Beggars (w/ Colossus and White Tiger and the Bed of Roses) @ Casbah (Durham)

5/27 Dance Music for Nerds @ Pinhook

5/27 Caltrop @ Kings Barcade (Raleigh)

5/28 Americans in France album release party @ Kings Barcade

5/28 Jews & Catholics @ Pinhook

5/28 Red Collar @ Casbah

5/29 Dangerous Ponies @ Pinhook

5/29 Grace Potter & The Nocturnals @ Lincoln Theatre (Raleigh)

Kings Barcade hosted the kickoff of the Beggars and Colossus’s 2011 North Carolina statewide tour Thursday, Jan. 13. Fortunately for the audience, the opening act was worth the $6 admission price.

The Beggars, classified as punk/rock/soul on their MySpace page, is a five-piece band from Detroit proper. Almost 700 miles is a long way to come to play for the two dozen or so people milling around Kings at the beginning of the set, but the group didn’t seem to mind. Vocalist Steven Davis swaggered around the stage wearing a red polo, khaki pants and a pair of white wrist sweatbands looking like he could be right at home at a 1980s Sunday afternoon family reunion – until the music started. Davis and his band mates were, in a word, enthusiastic. The singer’s theatrics included frequent jumps into the audience, losing his loafers and socks on more than one occasion, tossing the microphone around, crawling on his knees across the stage, a string of “fuck, yeah!”s in between songs and a backwards somersault from the floor back onto the stage. With all the jumping around, he even split his pants (a fact they specifically requested to be put in this blog). Davis slipped off the stage at the start of the last song, returning with “super limited edition” tour merchandise – a six-song CD and spiffy black tee.

The 45-minute set opened with “Same Costume as Mine,” a quirky song about matching outfits punctuated by the superb saxophone work of Rod “Pool Party” Jones. That got the crowd pumped up and kept them there through “FRK,” “It’s All About Me,” “Gold (My Neck I’ll Hang Around),” “25 Miles,” “Us Dudes (Wee get so Rad),” “Sleepaway Camp” and “Thieves.” Their finale “Stop, Drop, Rock n’ Roll” had the crowd chanting the chorus and pumped for the show’s headliner.

Colossus lead singer Sean Buchanan joined the Beggars on stage for “Stop, Drop, Rock n’ Roll,” which gave the first hint of intoxication. He made it clear he had a few too many when he crashed in to the drum kit in the middle of the second song. After a brief interlude, Buchanan regained his composure and the show continued. When he knocked over another drum, the band called it quits after the fourth song. The lyrics weren’t coherent enough to get any song titles.

Those who saw Colossus before Thursday should choose to remember them from previous performances. For those experiencing the Raleigh rock/metal band for the first time, consider giving them another chance. Colossus really does display “talent like a Viking lets blood on a battlefield as Independent Weekly’s Bryan Reed wrote. While the crowd did grow from the original two dozen, perhaps it was best there were limited witnesses.

The 2011 North Carolina statewide tour continues Friday, Jan. 14 at Pinups in Greensboro and Saturday, Jan. 15 at Reggie’s in Wilmington. The Beggars conclude their trip of the Wolfpack state Sunday, Jan. 16 at the Reservoir in Carrboro. Colossus will play again Saturday, Feb. 5 for the second day of the Bull City Metal Fest at Casbah.