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Thursday night was the first annual Best of Olympia Issue party hosted by everyone's favorite free South Sound alternative weekly, the Weekly Volcano. And what a party it was. Held at The Brotherhood Lounge in downtown Olympia, this inaugural event had many things working in its favor. The Broho was voted Best All-Around Bar by our readers for a good reason. We provided free pizza from Oldschool Pizzeria. The music was rockin'. And there were lots of people enjoying themselves on a cold Olympia night.

The room swelled with award winners and partiers right out of the gate, forcing folks to elbow their way back to the bands. Funny, even with our bitchin' raffle prizes, people were more interested in hanging out, drinking and chatting. "You know it's a who's who of the Olympia music and arts scene tonight," the Dirty Birds lead singer Jimmi Davies told me as we toasted his band's second place finish for Best Band in Olympia (The Brown Edition took first, voted by our readers).

Drummer and Olympia icon Jerry Ziegler, who we named Best Olympian this year, was in the house, too.

The Weekly Volcano would like to thank Pit, Nikki, the sound guy (you rock) and the whole Brotherhood Lounge crew for hosting the party. They went out of their way to make sure everything ran smoothly. We would like to thank Oldschool Pizzeria for the delicious pizza. They'll certainly be a strong contender in our Tournament of Pizza next month. We would like to thank DJ James for spinning between sets. A huge thanks to Morgan and the Organ Donors, Western Hymn and the Dirty Birds for rocking the joint. I've seen the Dirty Birds perform two-dozen or more times and I'd have to say this was a top five performance. Thanks to Sean Peterson for emceeing the party and the random trivia questions. And a big thanks and hug to the Washington Center for sponsoring the issue and donating raffle prizes.

We'll post the Best of Olympia 2011 issue on our website Thursday. In the meantime, the issue is nestled inside the Weekly Volcano from Federal Way to Tumwater.

Below are a few shots from Thursday's party. There's more shots in our Photo Hot Spot here. Unfortunately, I don't have any shots from Morgan and the Organ Donors performance as I had to run out for more batteries.

The best of Olympia turned out Thursday night. Thanks for the fun time Oly!