Gus's Pub on Sunday night
Since Saturday night went so well, I decided to go back out on Sunday, this time to Gus's. I haven't been back to Gus's since that one show in October but I'd noticed in The Coast where a bunch of bands were playing, including one called I See Rowboats, which featured one of my brother's former room mates. My brother has heard them and was impressed, so I thought I'd check them out.
Gus's is pretty small, and the event was to celebrate the birthday of a local musician, I guess, so it got crowded really quickly. I found a table only partly blocked by a structurally-necessary-but-vision-obstructing pillar, and ended up sharing it with three nice young women who quickly learned that Gus's is not a place where you order any drink that doesn't come with the cap on.
The first band up was called The First Aid Kit--I can't find a MySpace page for them (there are eight bands called The First Aid Kit on MySpace and I don't have time to rummage.) Anyway, they featured two guitars and a good-natured synthesizer, among other things, but I confess I was mesmerized by the fact one of their guitar players looked like Conan O'Brien. Okay, looked like Conan if you washed him in extremely hot water, so he shrank to half his usual size and his hair deflated. I'm sorry, once I started thinking of that it was really hard to concentrate on anything else. Fortunately, a gang of excited young people stood between me and the band for most of their set, and when I couldn't see I was able to pay attention to what they were playing.
After the last debacle with a dead-souled cover band I think I stated that I would rather listen to the worst original band on earth. These guys weren't the worst original band on earth, not by a very long chalk. But I got the impression... Okay, there were moments when they suddenly broke out into unexpected big vocals on the choruses, or the guitars did things that didn't seem to entirely match the dynamic of the song, and I finally decided that they know what they are going to sound like, someday, but they haven't quite put all the pieces together. It's like when you have a two-year-old colt and you can tell he's going to be a great little horse but right now he can't even walk in a straight line without wandering.
With that said, I liked them. There were big chunks of every song that worked, and they really really meant it, you know? And the synthesizer had a real sense of humour. I think they're going to be really good. At the moment they struck me more as sincere and full of potential. I'll take it.
I See Rowboats includes cello and violin and parts of their set were really orchestral, while one song I liked a lot sounded like the theme to a British caper flick from the sixties. By this time it was really packed in front of me and that was okay--it was sort of hypnotic just listening to them. It would be nice to catch them in a bigger venue where the sound had more elbow room, but they might be the kind of thing I'd like better on record anyway. You could probably write while listening to them.
I didn't stay around for the rest of the fun, figuring I'd been out late Saturday and will be out late tonight, and as my grandmother used to say there's no need to go to hell with the joke.
However, good fun, and it was kind of cool to hear some new and oddball stuff. Be interesting to see where these two bands go from here.
Gus's is pretty small, and the event was to celebrate the birthday of a local musician, I guess, so it got crowded really quickly. I found a table only partly blocked by a structurally-necessary-but-vision-obstructing pillar, and ended up sharing it with three nice young women who quickly learned that Gus's is not a place where you order any drink that doesn't come with the cap on.
The first band up was called The First Aid Kit--I can't find a MySpace page for them (there are eight bands called The First Aid Kit on MySpace and I don't have time to rummage.) Anyway, they featured two guitars and a good-natured synthesizer, among other things, but I confess I was mesmerized by the fact one of their guitar players looked like Conan O'Brien. Okay, looked like Conan if you washed him in extremely hot water, so he shrank to half his usual size and his hair deflated. I'm sorry, once I started thinking of that it was really hard to concentrate on anything else. Fortunately, a gang of excited young people stood between me and the band for most of their set, and when I couldn't see I was able to pay attention to what they were playing.
After the last debacle with a dead-souled cover band I think I stated that I would rather listen to the worst original band on earth. These guys weren't the worst original band on earth, not by a very long chalk. But I got the impression... Okay, there were moments when they suddenly broke out into unexpected big vocals on the choruses, or the guitars did things that didn't seem to entirely match the dynamic of the song, and I finally decided that they know what they are going to sound like, someday, but they haven't quite put all the pieces together. It's like when you have a two-year-old colt and you can tell he's going to be a great little horse but right now he can't even walk in a straight line without wandering.
With that said, I liked them. There were big chunks of every song that worked, and they really really meant it, you know? And the synthesizer had a real sense of humour. I think they're going to be really good. At the moment they struck me more as sincere and full of potential. I'll take it.
I See Rowboats includes cello and violin and parts of their set were really orchestral, while one song I liked a lot sounded like the theme to a British caper flick from the sixties. By this time it was really packed in front of me and that was okay--it was sort of hypnotic just listening to them. It would be nice to catch them in a bigger venue where the sound had more elbow room, but they might be the kind of thing I'd like better on record anyway. You could probably write while listening to them.
I didn't stay around for the rest of the fun, figuring I'd been out late Saturday and will be out late tonight, and as my grandmother used to say there's no need to go to hell with the joke.
However, good fun, and it was kind of cool to hear some new and oddball stuff. Be interesting to see where these two bands go from here.