Last weeks shows...
Last Monday (10/25/04) Jem & I went to Interpol. Openers: Hail Social and Secret Machines.Hail Social was pretty good! Boys from Philly, humble, good indie sound.
I like the Secret Machines (CD) and was actually really looking forward to seeing them because I've been enjoying the CD so much - but I thought they were totally just "pleasing themselves" up there going on & on... Their set made me antsy and I just wanted them to speed up or get on with it or something. I was annoyed they weren't as good as the album for me. So ya, I think it had to do with their jamming out with themselves that made me want to scream "Your not Interpol yet - you're here to rock us now get on with it!!!"
Interpol, on the other hand, was AWESOME. Way better than I could have hoped even!! I thought I was only going to last 2 songs in that insane people crush where I was getting touched by strangers on every side and having to touch parts of them against my will!!! But then somehow the music started and I couldn't leave! We ended up staying down there for the whole show.
Oh, and for the record, I heart Interpol's guitarist, Daniel Kessler. Something about him is SO HOT.
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Thursday night (10/28/04) we hit The Husbands, Mr. Airplane Man & Holly GoLightly at Bottom of the Hill. "We" was me, Rick, Jem, Mike, Lyne, Jim and even Hai was there! (actually I ran into about 3 other people I knew too, including a Pat from Rogue Wave sighting! :)
The Husbands annoyed the sh*t out of me. I liked them the first time we saw them, but this time she was smacking her gum and it was driving me crazy. Like her missing tooth isn't enough of a distraction when watching her sing - nobody should chew gum & sing in front of an audience! You're guaranteed to be grossing out at least 65% of us. Her backup singers (especially one of them) look like they had lobotomies and they're up their clapping and singing and it's all they can do to remember their big "oohs & la la la" parts while they look out at the audience like brainless zombies. I had to close my eyes to enjoy them... and the only cool part was when the organ/piano player from Harold Ray got up there & danced around with his toy piano.
Mr. Airplane Man was great!!! Unfortunately Rick left by that time to hit Metric at GAMH, so I think I was a little sad about that, and misplaced after being up front I couldn't hear her vocals - so then I moved and was getting that "your head is in my way b*tch" vibe from someone I was standing in front of - so needless to say I was a tad distracted during it all. But I ended up settling in next to Jim 1/2 way through and thoroughly enjoyed their last couple songs. They played a short set (unfortunately!) but they were awesome live! It's just 2 girls!! I thought for sure there'd be more of them and I kinda wish there had been just for energy - but they were great. I love their songs!! And live they lived up to every bit of their CD. I just wish they'd played longer!!
Holly GoLightly was fun! My friend Lyne is a big fan and she was right, I enjoyed their set! The lead singer is English and she was very cute - and they had a stand up bass, a keyboardist, 2 guitars and drummer. Great energy and the crowd loved their garage/jazz/blues/swingy beats.
I left around 12:15 tired and ready for bed... but hilariously ran into some people outside and we all ended up deciding to go to Thee Parkside for a drink. Crazy kids!
We walked in for the last band to go on & they gave us 2 for 1. We wouldn't even have gone in at this point due to having to pay another cover, but because I was absolutely FREEZING I insisted I couldn't bear to walk back the couple blocks to my car w/o having 1 beer here to warm up. So that's what we did :)
We ended up showing up for the last band: Armitage Shanks - and they were GREAT! I just realized they played w/ Operation S the following night at the Hemlock. I was stoked to have stumbled upon them. They have a really fun garage/uk punk sound and we all danced around and enjoyed warming up over a few more beers before calling it a night. Nice meeting you guys!
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Photos from the Interpol show & the Mr. Airplane Man / Holly GoLightly show are posted here - but I'll warn you Fotki is being finiky today so you can either try refreshing if you get the 503 error, or just check em out later today.
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Friday night Rick & I met up for Happy Hour at the Hotel Utah with some people from his company before heading out for a double header at Cafe du Nord.
We stopped off for a quick bite at Home, which we've been wanting to try. It was tasty!! Over dinner we got in a "heated discussion" about the difference between Voltron and Wonder-Twin Powers Activate. :) We also ran into my old friends Michelle, Ewa and Bridgette!
The night began upstairs at Swedish American Hall for Two Gallants. They were good, he's got such a unique voice and their songs are so amazing - total stories, but they feel like they're stories that happened back in the 1890's or something.
Next up was Britt Daniels (of Spoon), who was great as always and got the sleepy Swedish American Hall crowd clapping and calling out requests.
We headed downstairs for an awesome set of Robbers on High Street. I love these guys!! Their excellent live and we've had their Fine Lines EP for a couple months now and have really gotten into them.
I think they sound a ton like a cross between Spoon and On The Speakers, but I hate comparing as they've got their own deal goin on for sure because they're all very solid musicians that write great songs. Love them! Rick & both nabbed a t-shirt afterwards and rapped w/ the lead singer who (in reply to my question) reported they will have a full length out in January! woohoo!
We caught a teeny bit of Monolith, but didn't pay much attention for me to give any kind of review - but I'd like to hear their CD as it certainly didn't sound bad!
Closing the night was John Vanderslice who I was really stoked to see live finally after only getting a peek of him at SXSW. He was good, but I think we were more in the mood to see the pacings of Robbers on High Street at that point. Plus I was pretty tired from partyin the night before, and both Rick & I were feelin the long night in our legs (his more from running 20 some miles this week, me just cuz I am OLD! :) So we left before Vanderslice was done - but overall we had a fun night of shows!!!
