Tonight brings the long-awaited return of the Dark Knights of Camelot to the Thirsty Hippo. This has long been the alterego of Stale Fashion's venerable Ben Shea.The band will perform at 10 p.m. with the hardcore Southern folk of Semalea. Come hear some brand new Shea songs that have never been performed.

When gazing into the Shea's past, you can trace the circuitous path to his present and future. Speaking in transit between painting in New Orleans and picking up a triple cappuccino, Shea remembers his past.

"My first performance was a seventh-grade talent show," Shea recalled. "We played 'Stairway To Heaven.' " Following this rite of musical passage, Shea began recording his own stuff and playing the next few talent shows backed by the tracks he recorded on his 4-track.

Those formative years are important for any performer musically. Shea received his songcraft from his mother's collection of Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Billy Joel, while discovering that he could emulate the sprawl of Smashing Pumpkins "Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness" and the pinpoint powerful rock of Foo Fighters "The Colour and The Shape."

Moving to Hattiesburg a couple of years ago, Shea quickly found new music collaborators, producing and engineering Chance Fisher's recent release, "Nocturne Attics" while working on the first Dark Knights of Camelot EP.

Shea quickly found a fruitful new home with Stale Fashion. Since then everyone in Hattiesburg has witnessed that quartet's progress and workman-like precision lead them from obliterating audiences with their hooks from here to New York, Philadelphia and Boston.