[phlipcam video] Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield, Ruane dedication @ Great Scott

"That's from before your time," Juliana Hatfield tells me Monday night outside Great Scott, moments after she and Evan Dando wrap up their soundcheck for the first of two acoustic shows at the Allston rock club. She's referring to the Real Kids, the Boston garage rock band from the '70s and early '80s, a sudden topic of conversation since she and Dando will cover "Common At Noon" on both nights and dedicating the song to the late Billy Ruane.

The phlipcam video above is from the second night, Tuesday, Nov. 2, and just before I could hit record Dando proclaims, over the previous songs' applause: "This is for Billy Ruane."

In our conversation the day before, Dando said that Ruane attended the first-ever Lemonheads show ("He was the most animated person there") and recalled the story of him taking the Lemonheads and Blake Babies to play a show at Walpole State Prison in 1988. Dando, at the time dressed in jeans, had to run out last minute to get pants ("That was the uniform") and noted how the inmates loved the Blake Babies because "there were girls in the band." When Dando wondered what Ruane was doing during the show, Hatfield said he was likely off dancing with the crowd.

“He was kinda eccentric, but if you knew him, he was just Billy," she added. "He was such an original, no one was like him, no one is like him and no one will ever be like him. It was imperative to him to spread things around, to share the beautiful things."

After the show last night, as things were wrapping up and Fenway Recordings' Mark Kates was manning the DJ booth, I mentioned to Hatfield that I delved into the Real Kids catalogue after getting home on Monday, inspired by her off-the-cuff quip. I then asked her why she decided to cover and dedicate the John Felice-penned ballad, which first appeared on a 1977 Sponge Records split 7-inch with "All Kindsa Girls," to Billy Ruane.

"You'll have to ask Evan," she said. "He picked it out. I had never heard the Real Kids before... It was before my time, too."