Jon Langford, of the Waco Brothers, and DC’s own Ted Leo rock the Black Cat’s Big Shoulders Ball.

Windy City pride was on full display pretty much everywhere this weekend, but it was perhaps no more rampant than at the Big Shoulders Ball, hosted jointly by the Hideout nightclub in Chicago and the Black Cat, benefiting the Future of Music Coalition. At the top of the bill were some big names, like Andrew Bird and Ted Leo, and some legendary Chi-town music scene vets, like Eleventh Dream Day and the Waco Brothers.

Sprinkled in between was a pretty striking variety of blues, all-over-the-map indie, and a tribute to the free jazz of Sun Ra. Not to mention of course, the hair-brained, impassioned, and possibly over-served emceeing from Hideout owner Tim Tuten, who had nearly lost his voice as the show neared its conclusion. There was What’s the Matter with Kansas author Thomas Frank—like our new President, a Hyde Park man—who cracked a few jokes about Republicans’ quest for phony authenticity in “real America” and then concluded his speech with something about “real Midwestern values.”

But if you take the overwrought speeches out of the equation, there was a lot to admire in a great night of bands for a great cause. The oeuvre and stage presence of Ted Leo have been well–documented here, but even in a 30-minute set, he had surprises up his sleeve. Some of the fastest hands in indie rock served a few slices of Leo’s well-crafted, full-voiced punk-pop, before giving way to an exquisite a cappella Pete Seeger cover and a funky take on Leo’s Chicago hero, Curtis Mayfield’s “Keep on Pushin'”. But his set actually took things down a notch from cowpunk veterans the Waco Brothers. Coming on around 11 p.m., they blew through a series of blistering, tightly-wound tunes and effectively woke up a crowd laying a little low after Andrew Bird’s pretty but quiet half-hour. Thanks to its familiarity, the Brothers’ Sonny Curtis cover, “I Fought the Law” (faithful to the Clash’s version) got the audience bouncing and bobbing. They went after each song with an intensity and joy unmatched that evening.