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CROSS CANADIAN RAGWEED
8:30 p.m., Sticky Fingerz. $20.

Cross Canadian Ragweed played Sticky Fingerz way before they were Universal recording artists and country chart-toppers. So props to the Oklahoma-based act  — which takes its name from rhythm guitarist Grady Cross, lead vocalist/guitarist Cody Canada, drummer Randy Ragsdale and original bassist Mark Wiedemann (Jeremy Plato fills the role now) — for remembering its roots. On Tuesday, Southern rockers play an intimate acoustic show for what Sticky Fingerz predicts will be a standing-room only crowd. This is the first Little Rock acoustic-only show from the band, which is currently touring in support of “Mission California.” The record, the band's ninth overall and fourth on Universal South, debuted at number six on the Billboard country charts and spawned the songs “I Believe You” and “Cry Lonely.”

ALSO: Sticky Fingerz just opened a nice, expansive patio.

Plug. Derek Jenkins, our resident sports columnist, has a Times blog going. It's funny and  digressive and full of the all the wit and strong opinion we've come to expect from A Boy Named Sooie.

It’s easy to malign Riverfest. The headliners aren’t often contemporarily relevant. It takes forever to get anywhere. Turkey legs aren’t readily available everywhere. It’s teeming with people, many of whom aren’t wearing shirts, but should be.

But that’s small talk. There are just as many reasons to celebrate the Memorial Day Weekend get-down. To wit:


1. It’s teeming. Yes, the crowds make getting a beer and a footlong corndog a logistical nightmare, and yes, there are times, particularly at the end of the night, when Riverfest feels like nothing but a full-on confrontation with humanity — particularly this year, when a record 253,000 attended — but you can’t argue with the contributing factors. It’s cheap and there are opportunities for just about every age. So the people come. And not just the shirtless and teen-aged. In my three days’ experience, I communed with stroller-pushing mothers, older black ladies in church hats, and a raving middle-aged dude with a mustache who kept yelling at my wife, “She’s the one! That’s her!” There’s no event of anything even approaching similar scale that brings together such a diversity of people.