I'm Afraid of Americans

Mar 13, 2007 21:53

On Sunday FlareGunSuicide played a battle of the bands at the Riverside in Danielson, CT... and we just may have won it.

First off, Danielson is a town I had never heard of or been to before, so that in and of itself was an adventure (you haven't lived until you've taken 102 all the way up the entire state of Rhode Island).  The town itself was kind of nice; like Rutland, it probably benefitted more from being the only place for miles around with a grocery store than anything else, but it had a decent little downtown area.  The Riverside, however, was located off the main drag and was surrounded by ghetto housing and bombed-out mill complexes (though true to the name, it was right next to a river).  On the way in I passed a sign advertising the "urban renewal project" of the waterfront area, so maybe that particular street is on its way up.  In any case, it was a fairly sketchy-looking area that actually looked like it was being hidden by the town.

In contrast, the Riverside, a combination club/restaraunt, was actually quite nice.  Like KC's Tap, you'd never know how nice the place is from the view outside.  We all arrived, loaded in, and found out that our reward for being the first band to actually show up would be to play dead last.  All told, with set-up times and bands going over time, it meant that we didn't go onstage until after midnight.  Ah well, at least we'd get to watch our competition right?

Three bands showed up in addition to FGS, and the fact that it felt like such a close competition should be considered an insult to two of them.

I don't remember the first band's name, which is just as well, because they were terrible.  They were obviously high school kids, and judging by the Gibson Flying V, custom Telecaster, and Marshall half stack they had with them, were heavily dependent on mom and dad for equipment.  It seriously sounded like these guys were making up their songs as they went along, because they would jam on an idea for about a minute before switching to something else just as they were starting to get into a groove.  A couple times it sounded like they were on to something decent, which made it all the more frustrating when they would just ditch the idea and move on.  Their frontman occasionally named whatever song they were supposed to be playing, but to me it just sounded like they didn't have a goddamn clue.  I've seen otherwise good bands bomb shows before, and I've played a few sub-par gigs myself, but there was no excuse for this.  Add to this a ridiculously long sound check and a set that had to be far longer than the alotted half hour, and you've got yourself one hell of an opener.

The next band was cheekily named I Think Your Sister's a Robot.  They introduced themselves as an "improv band," which was the kind of disclaimer the band before them should have given.  Musically, I have no complaints about ITYSaR; they were good and heavy, and switched musical ideas with a kind of professional smoothness that was completely lacking in the opener.  The one weak link was their singer, who spend the first half of their set standing with his hands in his pockets, his back to the audience and not singing a word.  The crowd literally had to ask him to start singing, and even then it was only his bandmates mockery that got him to do much of anything.  He looked out of place and nervous, as if this was his first time singing in front of more than his bathroom mirror.  He was a complete contrast to the rest of the band, who looked like they were actually enjoying the show.  I'd like to think that we in the crowd brought the poor guy out of his shell a bit.  Because otherwise their set may have served absolutely no purpose.

With two underwhelming bands down, it started to look like Flaregun was going to walk away with this without even trying.  We showed up as a joke, and it was beginning to look like we were winning this.  Thankfully, the Hollow Sound were okay.  They were a female-fronted punk-pop band who were probably the tightest band of the night.  The Hollow Sound reminded me of Cassandra Kubinski if she had a louder backing band and a slightly weaker voice.  After the first two bands, they sounded like true professionals, and in the interest of sportsmanship I'd say they should walk away as the winners that night.  Plus they stuck around to watch us, which makes them good people in my book.

Now, maybe I'm biased, being the guitarist for the greatest fucking band ever to fucking fuck, but I thought we blew some minds with our set.  We were missing Kaiser von Kripple on bass, but we had Jordy Suicide's roommate (who we dubbed Dr. Anus McTaintfist, or something similarly gross) on keyboards to help fill out our sound.  I don't kow if it was the frustration of watching the first two "competitors" or the realization that the third combatant was actually decent, but for whatever reason we were really on that night.  "Scrotal Recall" was every bit as genius as it should have been, and the "Boots" songs went over well (despite, or perhaps because the lead singer of the Hollow Sound was actually wearing cowboy boots).  We debuted a few new tunes, of which "Bible Fight" is almost certain to become a crowd favorite, mostly because we started an actual fight with Bibles.  Overall, it was one of our best shows to date.

In the end, it probably came down to us and the Hollow Sound (though the parents of the first band may have stuffed the ballot box, so who knows).  As of right now I haven't heard the results, but the owner of the club did ask if we'd be interested in playing there again.  So even if we didn't win, we still won.  And if we actually won, then the entire world loses.

Update!  The Hollow Sound came in first for the round, FlareGunSuicide came in second, which is still good enough to move us on to the semifinals.  Your precious Jesus officially cannot save you now.

flaregunsuicide, music, battle of the bands

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