The night went quite well, overall. I think The Comet folks were somewhat befuddled by the running order of the night, which went band-solo-band-solo-band. For some reason this seemed to confuse them and resulted in longer change-overs than necessary.
They also wouldn't let us start until 10pm instead of the pre-determined 9:30pm, which meant the Young Sportsmen were going on as 12:30 instead of midnight. Sadly, the crowd of close to 100 had dwindled by that time. Their loss, however, as the Sportsmen rocked it out like they were in an arena instead of a sparsely populated club.
My band The Scheme started the night off, and since I was on stage, I didn't get any photos. But, trust me, we were very handsome. :)
Here are some snapshots of and comments on the rest of the bands.
James Hall, from Shake Some Action, came on second and did some nice solo acoustic version of SSA tunes. The songs hold up very well to that kind of stripped down setting, which is a testament to how good they are to begin with. I took a handful of shots of James, and he looks absolutely possessed by some kind of demon in all of them except this one.
James Hall - Shake Some Action
Up next were Ghosts & Liars, about whom I received more comments than any other band on the bill. I think lots of folks were surprised at how good they were. Descriptions of them from other folks to me ranged from "like The Decemberists without the sea chanties" to "like a folk-rock Jellyfish." Great songs, great sound.
Ghosts & Liars - Chris DuBray
Ghosts & Liars
On after G&L was Matt Southworth of The Capillaries. Matt played a lot of new tunes, as well as a Beatles cover, and sounded great. He was also pretty entertaining with funny in-song banter.
Matt Southworth - The Capillaries
Closing out the night were Young Sportsmen. As always, they rocked. As I mentioned earlier, it's to their credit that they played that show with all the heart and performance irrespective of the number of folks left in the house. Once again my friend David and I were trying to find decent comparisons for these guys. We settled on a little bit of Superdrag and a little bit of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give them, however, is that my wife -- who normally doesn't like live music unless she knows all the band's songs -- enjoyed their set. That might not seem like much. But, she's a tough critic. So, that bodes well for their appeal to people who "like music" but are not necessarily music fans. Based on this, I say they have a hit record within two years.
Young Sportsmen - Richard and Wesley
Young Sportsmen
Young Sportsmen -- providing a very big ending to a fun night of music
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