Trashcan Sinatras @ Martini Ranch

It takes colossal cojones to release a song called "Obscurity Knocks" as your band's debut single, which the Trashcan Sinatras did in 1990. "I think it was a wee bit of not so much tempting fate, but it just seemed to fit our personalities at the time," says singer Frank Reader, looking back two decades. With ringing guitar hooks and the Sinatras' signature clever wordplay, the tune set the template for five critically lauded studio albums that followed, including this year's beautiful In the Music. If they never quite cracked mainstream public consciousness, the band has built a sturdy cult of fans across the globe. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their first album, Cake, this acoustic tour brings the Sinatras to Scottsdale, the same city in which they began their first American tour in February 1991 with a show at Anderson's Fifth Estate (now Club Forbidden). "We could barely play!" remembers Reader. "We had the songs and we had the ambition and I think there's a beauty in watching people kind of strive beyond their capabilities and we were definitely doing that." Take it from somebody who saw that first show and has followed the band since: they've learned how to play, and very well, since then.