BAR FLY

Generations of SLU students cut their teeth on the beer glasses served at Twenty North (20 N. Vandeventer), always a safe place to go on a Friday night to throw back a few beers, listen to some music and stumble over to Clark's for the boat races. Clark's is now just a memory, a bump in the lawn where Spring Avenue used to go through from Laclede to Lindell, and now the wrecking ball has eyes for Twenty North, the home of St. Louis favorite cover band, Jake's Leg. Jake's Leg has been playing Grateful Dead tunes at Twenty North for 19 years, but their last show will be Friday, Oct. 1, one of the highlights of a week's worth of events to say goodbye to the bar.

On Wednesday, Sept. 29, past and present members of Jake's Leg will perform in the Jake's Leg All-Star Revue, recalling the long, strange trip it's been. On Thursday night the band hosts the Twenty North Useless Trivia Contest with prizes and giveaways for the most knowledgeable Twenty North regulars. Friday night, of course, is the big show, as Jake's Leg play their final gig at the bar. If the weather permits, the walls of the beer garden will come down and the band will play outside. On Saturday night, the Rhythm Gypsies will play the final concert open to the public at Twenty North, and on Oct. 15, Randy Furrer, owner of the bar and lead singer/guitarist for Jake's Leg, will turn his keys over to SLU President Lawrence Biondi, who will probably be waiting in the parking lot with a bulldozer.

After the walls come down, Jake's Leg will trade their SLU-undergrad fans for Washington University medical students as they move to new digs at Magee's-Twenty in Exile (4500 Clayton Ave.) behind the Central Institute for the Deaf, where they will play shows every Thursday beginning in mid-October.

During the week, select items from the bar will be offered in a silent auction (don't look for the Big River sign — the band's hanging onto that), and after the demolition, memorial bricks from the bar will be sold at $10 a pop, with the proceeds going to the St. Vincent DePaul Society.