Sunday, December 11, 2005 

Now That's Indie Rock 'N' Roll

So maybe it's just me, but Ryan and I went to a recent indie-rock show at Oleaver's, and the longer we stayed there, the more and more ridiculous it got. But I'll let you decide.

The first band consisted of two members of Tilly and the Wall playing a three song acoustic/keys set, with numerous parties sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching the music unfold. The people sitting on the floor I brushed off as a normal indie-rock thing to do in a crowded, bar environment.

Then, the next "band" took the floor. I use the term band loosely because it consisted of a girl singing and playing keys, a guy playing with one hand on the high end of the keys, another guy sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a nylon string guitar that no one could hear, and a girl sitting next to the keyboard waving a large sheet of white paper up and down. They played but one song, but this definitely isn't the last you'll hear from them.

After they were done, the one and only Nik Fackler took the floor for what he claimed was his first performance infront of people. I wanted to not like it (because of his whole beating us in the two-day extreme film festival last year with an awesome short that, turns out, only loosely fit the action genre he had drawn, but since he's a professional in an amateur competition, he of course got first place), but, as fate would have it, it wasn't half bad. However, his "unplanned encore" consisted of a cover of a Japanese song that I could have done without.

Not weird enough yet? Well then lets dive right in. Up next were two guys who took 35 minutes to setup...to play two songs. Not only that, but they were dressed in Zorro-esque outfits...complete with hats. Oh, did I mention they were blindfolded? They were blindfolded.

Then, the headliner, David Dondero, took the stage with just a drummer, and about two songs in, the girl singer from the previous "band" and her friend, the paper waver, were dancing wildly around Dondero and his drummer for the course of an entire song. The drummer was not amused when they set up camp right behind him for the last two verses of said song. It was also during this song that two random dudes got up and started dancing wildly in place...together. But the weirdness didn't stop there...far from it. The crazy girls both went outside together, then came back inside. Seemingly not that weird, but upon further review one would notice that the singer girl was now wearing a black tanktop and red tights, instead of the skirt she had previously been wearing. That skirt was no being used to what can only be described as "fanning the stage."

The end? Not quite.

When Dondero's drummer took a break later in the set, one of the crazy guys that was previously dancing, gets up and goes, "I got this." He then proceeded to grab the drum brushes and start playing with Dondero on his next song. Only problem was that he couldn't drum. He was barely keeping beat, and when he started to "feel the music," he just freaked out and started hitting all of the drums at an extremely fast pace with no rhythm whatsoever. It almost looked like he was dancing again. Not long after this, this same guy who was just drumming stood up right infront of Dondero, while he was still playing mind you, and started pouring a pitcher of beer into a 16 oz. can of Old style, which is not physically possible, just so you know.

Finally, when things can't get much more ridiculous, they do. Dondero was playing his last song and halfway through, the mic just stopped working. So he tilted the mic straight up and started tapping on it to see if it would work. It didn't, so he just decided to finish the remaining three minutes of the song, singing with no microphone.

Now that's indie-rock. Needless to say, we didn't really fit in wearing our grey hooded sweatshirts.

posted by Stein  # 6:23 PM