Monday, April 04, 2005
sobriety rocks
On Friday night I made it through a rock show without having a single drink for the first time since 1998, maybe. Oneida, Devil Music, and the Birds of Avalon played at the Brookline Community Center for the Arts, four or five blocks down Harvard Street from our apartment. I am the World Trade Center and the Paper Lions played a show there about a year ago, a show that I missed in order to see Elf Power across town the same night. I sort of regret that decision. The show was in a dance studio in the basement, so the walls were lined with mirrors. There was no stage, and the bands switched from one side of the room to the other when they played. The sound was surprisingly good, and thanks in part to the mirrors it was easy to see everything. I think it would be an excellent place to see the Trade Center, especially if it was packed full of folks from Athens. All in all, it's a good venue, yes sir.
Devil Music has pretty much become Oneida's personal openers here in Boston; they've played at least the last three Oneida shows in town. Tonight they had a five-piece horn section complementing their standard violin-bass-guitar-drums set-up. It definitely changed their sound, and not necessarily for the better. Devil Music proper have always been fairly bombastic, in an Emerson Lake and Palmer kind of way, but the horns elevated that bombast to a whole new level. At times it came off like a Miklos Rozsa score with rock elements thrown in. It was really good, but a little overwhelming at times, and not quite as enjoyable as the other two shows I've seen them play.
The Birds of Avalon, from Raleigh, North Carolina, is the new band from Cheetie and Paul, former guitarist and bass-player, respectively, for the Cherry Valence. No idea why left the Valence, but these Birds rock pretty much just as hard, and pretty much in just the same sort of way. We're talking down-and-dirty, juke-joint boogie-woogie, like Molly Hatchet or Ram Jam. It seemed to alienate most of the punks and art-rockers in the crowd, but I was digging, as were the potentially sapphic drunk girls grinding into each other and the lead singer. I miss the dual-drumming power of the Valence, but the Birds of Avalon are otherwise just as enjoyable. Had I been drunk I probably would have been blown away; as is, it was pretty good.
Oneida finished it up with a reliably great set that made me momentarily forget my unquenchable thirst. I've generally been half-drunk to oblivion when I see these guys, so watching them sober was almost kind of special. It was a big change from their show at the Hoss House last year, where I polished off a twelve-pack on my lonesome in some stranger's basement. Anyhow, they began with a so-so "Each One Teach One" that gradually wound up being pretty awesome by the end. They played a few off the new album, and a song or two each from Nice / Splittin' Peaches, Secret Wars, that Liars split, Each One Teach One, and Anthem of the Moon. It was all good to great, except for maybe the finisher, "Sheets of Easter", which came off as perfunctory and less intense than usual. Afterward my knees ached like hell from all the spastic twitching; methinks that's something the alcohol normally obscures, as I'm rarely in pain like that after a show.
So reliving the non-drunken days of yore was all fine and good for a night, but I don't envision it becoming a regular habit. One of my few goals has always been to become a full-blown alkie by the time I hit 30, and with barely two years left I've still got lots of work to do. Also I wind up going to a lot of shows alone, and in those situations it's almost impossible to resist that sickly siren's call.
On Friday night I made it through a rock show without having a single drink for the first time since 1998, maybe. Oneida, Devil Music, and the Birds of Avalon played at the Brookline Community Center for the Arts, four or five blocks down Harvard Street from our apartment. I am the World Trade Center and the Paper Lions played a show there about a year ago, a show that I missed in order to see Elf Power across town the same night. I sort of regret that decision. The show was in a dance studio in the basement, so the walls were lined with mirrors. There was no stage, and the bands switched from one side of the room to the other when they played. The sound was surprisingly good, and thanks in part to the mirrors it was easy to see everything. I think it would be an excellent place to see the Trade Center, especially if it was packed full of folks from Athens. All in all, it's a good venue, yes sir.
Devil Music has pretty much become Oneida's personal openers here in Boston; they've played at least the last three Oneida shows in town. Tonight they had a five-piece horn section complementing their standard violin-bass-guitar-drums set-up. It definitely changed their sound, and not necessarily for the better. Devil Music proper have always been fairly bombastic, in an Emerson Lake and Palmer kind of way, but the horns elevated that bombast to a whole new level. At times it came off like a Miklos Rozsa score with rock elements thrown in. It was really good, but a little overwhelming at times, and not quite as enjoyable as the other two shows I've seen them play.
The Birds of Avalon, from Raleigh, North Carolina, is the new band from Cheetie and Paul, former guitarist and bass-player, respectively, for the Cherry Valence. No idea why left the Valence, but these Birds rock pretty much just as hard, and pretty much in just the same sort of way. We're talking down-and-dirty, juke-joint boogie-woogie, like Molly Hatchet or Ram Jam. It seemed to alienate most of the punks and art-rockers in the crowd, but I was digging, as were the potentially sapphic drunk girls grinding into each other and the lead singer. I miss the dual-drumming power of the Valence, but the Birds of Avalon are otherwise just as enjoyable. Had I been drunk I probably would have been blown away; as is, it was pretty good.
Oneida finished it up with a reliably great set that made me momentarily forget my unquenchable thirst. I've generally been half-drunk to oblivion when I see these guys, so watching them sober was almost kind of special. It was a big change from their show at the Hoss House last year, where I polished off a twelve-pack on my lonesome in some stranger's basement. Anyhow, they began with a so-so "Each One Teach One" that gradually wound up being pretty awesome by the end. They played a few off the new album, and a song or two each from Nice / Splittin' Peaches, Secret Wars, that Liars split, Each One Teach One, and Anthem of the Moon. It was all good to great, except for maybe the finisher, "Sheets of Easter", which came off as perfunctory and less intense than usual. Afterward my knees ached like hell from all the spastic twitching; methinks that's something the alcohol normally obscures, as I'm rarely in pain like that after a show.
So reliving the non-drunken days of yore was all fine and good for a night, but I don't envision it becoming a regular habit. One of my few goals has always been to become a full-blown alkie by the time I hit 30, and with barely two years left I've still got lots of work to do. Also I wind up going to a lot of shows alone, and in those situations it's almost impossible to resist that sickly siren's call.
