More haiku on The Comet

Last night was a pretty rockin' show at The Comet. The crowd was larger than I thought it might be for a night that had so much going on (Dino Jr., Slender Means, Mirah, and several other shows were all happening at various clubs). I'd probably guess 150 through the door, which is not bad, all told.

You might recall that Ari Spoon posted an "ode to the Comet" over at the Stranger's Line Out blog back in April and I responded with some Comet-inspired haiku. I figured I could continue that tradition (if something you've done exactly once can be called a tradition...) in this post about the show last night.

I'll start with a few complaints.

I think I've simply logged too many hours in clubs over the past 20 years, because I'm really impatient at rock shows. I just want to get things started at 9pm and have the change-overs between bands be smooth and quick. That never happens at the Comet.

You book four-band bills
But won't start them 'til 10:10
Makes for a long night

The sound system at The Comet cracks me up. They have a three foot tall rack of power amps, equalizers, enhancers, compressors, limiters and various other gadgets. Yet it still sounds like my garage. In fact, I think last night might've actually sounded better if the bands had been in my garage, because by the end of the night, I couldn't hear a word the Young Sportsmen were saying. Now, given, my boys are loud. But, still.

Mighty sound system
You are a paper tiger
The mics shock my lips

So, with those complaints out of the way, it was a generally fun night. Red Sky started the evening off. I really love their songs and I'm a big fan of Max's guitar playing and Rob's unapologetic lyrical sensitivity. But, I'm not sure they are the best band to have start out the night. Because while their slow, dreamy pop is appealing to me, I think I needed an energy boost to start my Friday night of rock. Maybe if they had a few more uptempo numbers in their set.

Fans of Scottish pop
So in love and dreamy
90 bpm

The Capillaries came out next, after a lengthy delay with the sound system. Apparently the monitors were not working. So, the sound person worked to get them going. I believe this was also the beginning of the "get shocked by the mic" part of the evening. This show was the debut of the new Capillaries line up that includes Eric Corson (The Long Winters) on guitar and Aaron Huffman (Harvey Danger) on bass. They've got a new recording coming out quite soon, and I'm digging a lot of their new material.

Catchy falsetto
Riffs that get stuck in my head
New record drops soon

We of Shake Some Action were on third. We focused our set on more of the rockin' stuff and a little less of the poppy stuff, and given the PA system situation, I'm glad that we did, since rock transcends being able to actually hear the vocals. Other than taking a low-grade shock to the lips about a dozen times throughout the set, I thought it went well. Kudos to our guitarist David Bos who agreed to play this show even though he had a 10a.m. flight this morning to France for a two week vacation with his wife, Imaginary Dana.

Such a rocky start
But new songs go over well
Glad I'm in this band

Closing out the show was the Young Sportsmen. They gave us exactly what we've come to expect -- both the energy knob and volume knob rolled all the way off to the right. As I mentioned before, you could barely hear their vocals through the PA system, which is a shame because Wesley has a great voice and a big, rock-and-roll delivery. But, at least you could still see the delivery, even if you couldn't hear the voice. Even though the whole night was running late and I don't think they even started until nearly 12:30am or so, there were still plenty of folks in the room to hear them lay it down.

Big sound yet still pop
Cracking snare drum and big bass
Foam smells like toilet

That last line was just for Wesley and those paying attention to his in-between song banter.