The Rickshaw Stop.
4/19/10.
Best $15 bucks I've spent in months.
Saint Motel started it out way better than I expected. Kind of that LA, could've been featured on "The O.C." back in the day sort of thing. You know, Bait Shack material. They had a big screen behind them with images projected and that was a nice touch. I bought their EP (titled "For Play," the cheeky bastards) and chatted with them for a minute. They said they're working on an album (Do you like how it seems like lately all I do is badger the bands I like about when they're going to release an album? You do? So do I). I'll definitely keep tabs on them.
Saint Motel
The 22-20's were fun to start out with (I totally called the fact that they were British - something about their hair just spelled it right out), but they got kind of lame as time went on. Their songs were too long and they all sounded the same, and the band itself just had zero charisma. They were all well into their late twenties, and I just kept looking at them and thinking, 'aren't you ready to give up your rockstar dreams by now?' Which is funny, because most bands I love are at least in that age range. I guess the difference is that it just didn't feel too legitimate or something. Like they weren't doing it because they loved it as much as they were doing it to be cool. Give it up, boys.
The 22-20's
We wedged ourselves into the front row for Band of Skulls which was an AWESOME decision. Emma was on my right, playing bass, her arms and hands extremely veiny and strong. Matt was in the back, ignored by most as he drummed away. Russell, with his long, pointy beard, was far on the left. The best moments were when he or Emma would head towards the middle of the stage during one of their solos. For one song they sort of came together (right in front of me!) and leaned against each other, heads down. Very showy, but in a charming way.
Band of Skulls Gettin' Close
They started with "Light of the Morning," then moved on to a song that I didn't recognize but Danielle got excited about, so I knew it was the Twilight song. If you ever want to hear my rant about the evils of Twilight, let me know and I'll treat you to it. HOWEVER, I will say that the soundtrack for the second movie has its strengths, at least as far as artists go. I haven't heard a lot of the songs, actually, but I do like the Band of Skulls song. "Friends," I think it's called.
Before the show Britt and I had been saying (over and over) to each other which song we most wanted to hear. I was obsessing over "Fires," and she wanted to hear "Cold Fame." I mean, so did I, but "Fires" was a wee bit higher on my list, and vice versa. Those were the only two songs from their album that they didn't play back in December, which is why Britt and I were a little concerned about whether we would get to hear them or not.
About four songs in they did a brilliant rendition of "Fires." They followed it up with "Cold Fame." A-MAZ-ING.
Then Russell goes, "we're gonna play a song we haven't done in awhile, but someone asked us to play it and I'll feel bad if we don't. So please forgive us if we blunder."
The drummer pulled out a fancy guitar (apparently it was Russell's, and new, because Russell was like waiting for him to tune it, saying, "it's the first time it's ever been played; you can't play it out of tune"), and they played "Honest" (I call it the Fleetwood Mac inspired song - and I mean that as a compliment).
They performed every song on the album except "Dull Gold Heart," which is the only song I ever skip when I listen to the CD because I'm usually too antsy to get to "Cold Fame." When they did "I Know What I Am" the crowd got predictably and wonderfully rowdy and excited. SUCH a fun song.
After the set we hung around for a bit as almost everyone filtered out to go home. Emma showed up at the bar so I asked her to sign the poster I'd picked up, which she did. "The boys'll be out in a bit," she said, so we waited and they signed it too. They were a little awkward/British, and Russell is SHORT (well, maybe my height or an inch shorter, but it just feels like he should be taller, the way he kills those guitar solos), but it was cool to get a chance to tell them how much we enjoyed the set.
Which I really, really did.
No comments:
Post a Comment