“Excuse me, we’re on the list.”

If I had a dime for every time I said that unsuccessfully this weekend, I would almost have enough to pay the tolls from Madison to Chicago. I wonder, did Noel really think she could pass as a five-foot-five redhead with freckles? Noel is a six-foot, 19-year-old brunette with toffee brown skin. And Noel is good at making friends with people in bands from Detroit.

Claire and Noel are the biggest fans of Detroit this side of Lake Michigan. Claire is also a redhead with freckles, and Claire’s sister Lillian owns the five-foot-five frame and green eyes on Noel’s fake ID. The bouncer at The Metro in Chicago is the newest owner of this plastic heirloom.

Claire, Noel, Tiara and I decided to drive to Chicago to get a deuces-wild, double-or-nothing deal–The Detroit Cobras and The Dirtbombs playing the same venue with three other bands from that proud, proud city. Oh, and we’re on the list.

Some things went very wrong in Chicago. And everything else seemed to go right, right-on come Saturday morning.

“Don’t worry, Patrick put most of us on the list,” Noel said in her skater-brah drawl. The four of us rolled down Interstate 90 for two hours and 20 minutes. Soundtrack included: Polly Golightly, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Mick Collins’ old band The Gories. We are getting so excited to see our punk/soul hero Mick Collins’ new band, The Dirtbombs. The appropriate soundtrack numbed our drive and got us excited to dance.

We pulled up tight in Chi-town. Lillian lives in Wicker Park, where two worlds meet in the strangest way. Lillian lives on a block of Puerto Rican families that have lived here for generations. Around the corner, you can pay $12 for a vegan tofu scrambler and organic bagel breakfast at a yuppie, white cafe. All we wanted were some three-dollar huevos rancheros . . .

We took the bus to the Red Line and finally arrived late at the venue. Noel gets her (er, Lillian’s) ID taken away and misses the damn thang. Claire groans, “I hear Mick Collins singing to me right now. Ooooowwwwww.”

We decided to leave Noel to fend for herself upstairs with the serious bouncers while we went in and get our $15 worth of rock and roll, rhythm and soul. Patrick Pantano did what he could for the bunch of these boisterous fans. We knew she wouldn’t get in one of these days. So much for the list.

Claire, Tiara and I each paid our $15 and walked in while the Detroit Cobras set up their equipment. “Nice bellbottoms,” Tiara commented. Tiara works at a vintage clothing store in Madison. She dug the bass player’s sweet 1970s Levi pants. And we definitely dug that this awesome band has a female guitar player named Maribel.

Lights dimmed, smoke rising, sexy beasts stumbled out onto stage. Rachel was last to appear. Rachel is the singer, the singer and dancer at the front of the stage. She introduces the Cobras and breaks into a groove.

The Cobras exclusively play soul/rock ‘n’ roll/blues covers. Otis Redding, Ronnie Mack, Ike and Tina, you know. Rachel informed us that after a year and a half of celibacy, she just found love, sweet love, and has been abusing her voice, ahem, in bed.

She explained that’s why it doesn’t sound as good as it could. But it did sound good, even though we could tell she was a little hoarse. “If someone could bring me a Stoli and tonic, I will love you!” she grovels and flirts with the audience. She smokes a cigarette while two competing fans rush bubbling drinks up to the stage.

She’s magnetic. She’s a strung out, to’ up, D-troit wuuuhman. Rachel can sing, man, right through the tar on her lungs. And she can dance. She used to dance at clubs, and I bet she caught lots of tips.

Tiara, Claire and I sang right along and shook to “Right Around the Corner,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “Cha Cha Twist,” “Boss Lady,” “Bad Girl” and all the other songs we know by heart.

“Come on, y’all. We ain’t about creativity or anything like that. We ain’t about shit. We’re about the music, so dance, damn it!”

***

“Oh, it was great. We danced, man. What the hell happened to you?”

Noel had to sit at the Wrigleyville Dog hotdog restaurant for an hour and a half, after being lectured on fake identification. This is when we kidnapped the Dirtbombs’ Patrick Pantano.

Claire, Noel and Tiara met Patrick on the Fourth of July when his other band, The Come Ons, played at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago. They all had fun together last time in Chicago, so he made the decision to come with us to some party. The other Dirtbombs had my cellular number so they could catch up with Patrick again and bring him to Milwaukee the next night.

The party was a total bust–I mean flat busted. And we hadn’t gotten any phone calls from the other Dirtbombs. Suddenly we figured out that we gave them my number without the area code. We call it a night. Everyone found a crooked couch at Lillian’s house. I woke up in the morning and bought a $12 vegan breakfast instead of three-dollar huevos rancheros.

Let’s review: tolls, $15, near-arrest, missed favorite band play, party sucks, $12 tofu, kidnapped Dirtbomb. We were then 100 percent obligated to bring this man to The Cactus Club in Milwaukee by 7 p.m. Saturday night. More next time. Yeow!