I spent a summer in Washington, D.C., and never thought I'd top the Fourth of July fun I had that year.

While I still have never seen a fireworks display that came close to the one our nation's capital puts on, I think I topped the amount of fun with this year's festivities.

I got invited to a friend of a friend's home that was part of a block party in East Moline. My friends and I sipped Dos Equis from plastic cups in a garage, ate authentic Mexican tacos from a cart down the alley that were amazing and decided it was time to go after two failed attempts at lighting fireworks convinced us something was going to be blown up or burned down by the end of the night.

Then we headed down to The District just in time to catch the Legendary Shack Shakers. I couldn't understand a word of their lyrics, which usually means I don't like the band because I don't really get the point of having lyrics if you can't comprehend them.

But there was something different about the Shack Shakers. Maybe it was the upright bass, the driving beat that never slowed down or highly animated frontman J.D. Wilkes, but I found myself bouncing along with the music throughout the entire show.

They were so good I even bought an LP of their most recent album, "Swampblood," partially to remember the show and partially in anticipation of the looks on my hypothetical children's faces when they find it in my record collection someday and wonder what on Earth their mother was thinking.

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