OK, we've seen a lot of, um, "interesting" cocktails in our day (beergarita, anyone?), but this one is really, really odd: The Nicotini ($12) at Viet Bistro. It's the perfect solution for those tired of shivering in the cold to get their nic fix. Sommelier/"bar chef" Rashed Islam creates this concoction by steeping loose European tobacco in sugar cane juice to extract the nicotine. "It's almost like making tea, in a sense," he explains. He then mixes the extract with anything you'd like, including with chocolate espresso-infused liqueur or straight up. A smoker himself, Islam says the Nicotini helps him get through his shift. "One martini keeps me occupied for, like, four hours," he says. "It's almost like a nicotine patch." 

"I thought this was the late show," exhausted Yeasayer singer Chris Keating said toward the end of his group's early-show set Friday at Schubas.

He was kidding, but no one in the sold-out crowd could blame him for being worn out. His highly buzzed Brooklyn band turned in a dynamic, extremely engrossing set as the early show opening act (fellow New Yorkers MGMT headlined the early show and opened the late show). Also, despite telling me in our interview that he would no longer bash drummer Luke Fasano's cymbal and cut his arm open, Keating still wound up with a bloody right arm mid-show. (I didn't see him hit the cymbal but can't imagine any other reason he would be bleeding.) Injuries and all, the quartet did a fantastic job of adapting their complex debut album, "All Hour Cymbals," leaving the intricate sitar backdrops to recorded loops and doing all that a well-honed band could really do on stage. The band sounded tight, excited, and driven to succeed. It wasn't the dance party that Keating said he wanted out of an audience—perhaps the late show delivered a more mobile crowd—but the delivery was more than impressive.

The same can't be said for MGMT, whose lackluster set resulted in the crowd epitomizing the hipster cliché of "standing around and looking bored." The band's album "Oracular Spectacular" is better than fine but their live show is much worse, with the members' youthful, scraggly appearances doing nothing to help rough, ragged arrangements of tunes cooler than MGMT looks. (Frontman Andrew Vanwyngarden looks like the obnoxious punk who picked on your kid brother in high school.) While Yeasayer's set made me want to go home and listen to their record repeatedly, MGMT made me want to shrug them off for good.

Read the metromix interview with Chris Keating  here:
http://chicago.metromix.com/music/article/friendship-bracelets-for-all/299265/content

Audiences didn't let bad reviews and an awful-looking trailer keep them away from seeing Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson's exposed, bronzed skin in "Fool's Gold." The romantic comedy topped the weekend box office with $22 million, edging out Martin Lawrence's horrific comedy, "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins," which placed second with $17.1 million. The only good news is that the disturbingly popular Disney vehicle, "Hannah Montana/Cyrus Miley: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," slid from $31.1 million in its opening weekend to a third place, $10.5 million take in its second week.

As for Paris Hilton's atrocious "The Hottie and the Nottie," it, like, totally tanked, earning only $26,000 in 111 theaters. That number seems obviously horrible, but for some contrast it's worth noting that Colin Farrell's decent comedy-thriller, "In Bruges," made $471,200 in only 28 theaters.

Did you see any of the bad new movies this weekend, or have you been catching up with the Oscar nominees?