On Friday night, New River Voice Managing Editor Taryn Chase and I traveled to Roanoke’s Kirk Avenue Music Hall to catch an infrequent rock show at the venue. Kirk Ave. has developed quite a reputation for bringing in great acts in the folk, Americana, and bluegrass genres, but Gary Jackson and the gang from Kirk Ave. stayed local for some loud guitars and drums.

The main attraction was Roanoke-based My Radio, a band enjoying the limelight right now as its song “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” is on the soundtrack of the movie The Joneses. My Radio drummer Hunter Johnson was my guest in WVRU’s local radio show The Listening Room a couple weeks ago and the band saw the premiere of its video for “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” at Roanoke’s Grandin Theatre recently along with the premiere of The Joneses.

But opening the night Friday was Virginia Beach’s The Influence. We wrote about The Influence way back in 2007 when they were playing a show in Blacksburg and touring to promote their Pig Radio CD. These guys are a hard-driving, energetic rock band akin to some of the early ’90s rock and grunge bands. They ripped through a fairly lengthy set for an opener before giving way to Roanoke favorite sons My Radio.

Playing mostly songs from their Give Us the Sun CD, the band started off the set with “Another World” and followed with the CD’s title track. The band then tested out a couple new tunes on the audience before jumping back into more songs off the current CD.

As the band was nearing the end of its set, tunes such as “Hit Like a Girl,” “Turn Up the Radio,” and finally the much-anticipated “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” had the Kirk crowd in a joyous mood.

For an encore, the group nailed a great cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” which kept up the energy and dancing from the end of the set.

Overall, it was another solid night for Kirk Avenue Music Hall and a good time had by patrons listening to some home-grown music.