It’s Sunday night at the Riverside Theater, and we’re running the gauntlet of the vaguely recognizable Milwaukeeans (Did I? Did we ? Are you ? etc.). Though our Gen X peers continue to age at varying degrees of speed, Violent Femmes founding members Gordon Gano (guitar, lead vocals) and Brian Ritchie (bass, backing vocals) sound straight out of 1984. One of the most vital American bands of the 20th century arrives with an oversized Picasso-blue behemoth bass; a frontman playing (among other things) banjo and violin; occasional xylophone; accompaniment from the Horns of Dilemma, and a stand-up drummer brushing the hell out of everything. Oh yeah, and they call themselves “an acoustic punk band” whose “goal was to rock harder than any other acoustic act on the planet.”

If you’re

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