"You fat fuck!"

A friend of mine once said that beer is the force that gives us peeing. And on Saturday evening it gave the MOGpac the resplendent Twilight Singers, cloaked in a thick fog of soul, whiskey and illicit cigarette smoke at Brooklyn's Warsaw. For their second major American tour in six months, Greg Dulli's post-Afghan Whigs project put on a storming set reminiscent of the 2001 gig we caught at Bowery Ballroom in support of Twilight As Played By... This will sound blasphemous to some longstanding Dulli fans, but the gig almost made up for my having missed The Whigs' final national tour - in support of the stunning 1965 - as the group closed with two of my favorite numbers from that LP.

Mind you, the gig could have been a disaster of epic proportions. And as F, Irene, The Kidd, G and I sat at the Polish National Home's bar drinking Zywiec, this possibility lingered in the backs of our minds. During the first leg of the band's Blackberry Belle tour last year, sets ran three hours or longer as Dulli, a glutton of epic proportions, drank himself into a stupor and told 20-minute stories to the audience while the band looped introductions to their songs ad nauseum. We learned about Amber Headlights, the near-complete Twilights album that was scrapped upon the death of Dulli's friend, director Ted Demme. And about Elliot Smith drinking at Dulli's Los Angeles bar, The Short Stop. And about Dulli screwing his college girlfriend to Marvin Gaye and Kate Bush. It was charming and funny for a few minutes, then wore thin rapidly. How thin? The Kidd - the most ardent of Dulli fans and the man responsible for introducing the MOGpac to The Whigs - walked out of the gig.

Luckily Saturday's gig was brisk and succinct, wrapped up in a timely two hours. "Uptown Again," "Up In It" and "Somethin' Hot" sounded boozy as ever, while the gentler tunes from the debut Twilights LP were infused with new rock and swagger. Dulli said little but teased the crowd a few times, making reference to the fans' distaste for his Storytellers routine on the previous tour (he pulled the same gimmick at almost every show in the fall, and was deservedly reviled by fans and critics alike.)

And it probably did not hurt that copious amounts of beer were consumed before and during the gig, punctuated by a round of Jaegermeister for all. F was in rare form, putting 'em back in a way I had not seen since we hit up KGB Bar with Jamie Duffy. The next time you see him, ask him what he remembers about this evening.

In other Dulli news, The Twilights are releasing a full-length album of covers this summer, while the man is recording a separate LP with ex-Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan under the moniker of The Gutter Twins. Dulli and Lanegan claim that group will tour, playing songs by all of their affiliated bands and covers with a revolving cast of musicians. I am hoping we will be seeing more of Greg in the coming year.