08/11/02 @ the Metro
Darren Hanlon
Dave McCormack & the Polaroids
Alma
getting there
so for like, the first time ever, mark makes it to the station before me and had to show off by calling and hurrying me up!
at the station there were all these crazy and loud girls, probably going to their formal....
choose life, choose getting excited about school, choose to buy the school jersey, choose going to the formal, choose a really attention getting outfit. well, last year, we chose not to choose life, we chose something else. (homebake!) fuck paying for money to hang out at a lame party with people we didn't want to hang with at school anyway. fuck, a school organised get-together.
instead of Girlfriend magazine, we found a copy of the finical times instead. couldn't get as many laughs out of that, although i thought the numbers were pretty funny.
ALMA
a band from Sweden! a very quiet, folk music type band. unlike your other famous swedish bands (the hive, the international noise conspiracy...), they didn't rock out with guitars trashing and drum kits kicking, and i don't think they were very famous. i don't think they even had drums. all i knew about alma prior to this was one of them sang on darren hanlon's album in a song about going to the hospital to see her ex boyfriend who fell off a horse ("ha, ha, ha!") Jonas, played lead guitar, Frida played a Ktybt (Keyboard That You Blow Through, yes, that IS the official name! it IS now!), and Anna played multiple instruments. somewhere along the way, there were harmonicas, acoustic guitars, ktybt's, tambourines and a hand held drum. we were rather rude and talked thru most of their set, the rest of the crowd was as quiet as an empty library. but we were at the back, so surely, we're allowed to be as loud as we like. mark got us some crap beer, ben got himself several millilitres of some other fancy shit.
all along, there was this one guy to the right out front standing.
DAVID McCORMACK & THE POLAROIDS
you may remember David from such bands as Custard, the Titanics, and i'm sure there were some other bands he's been involved in too.
starting of quietly, they quickly got a bit louder, but i guess anything would sound like industrial/death metal compared to Alma.
electric guitar and bass. drums, keyboards.
what caught my attention was the keyboard player. he was totally funky. he had a long sleeves shirt with puffy sleeves, and when he was banging on that keyboard with his head shaking around, HE LOOKED SO MUCH LIKE A MUPPET! you know, how when elmo may get excited, he may just shake around with arms flapping up and down? well, the keyboard player was like that.
the girls seem to love david.
it was cool they did one or two Custard tracks. totally different version of "girls like that", especially with the funky, wobbly keyboard. and then a quieter one which i think was a custard track, but wasn't 100% sure.
that guy, the only person standing up during Alma, was dancing by himself during david's show, still pretty much the only person standing up then. midshow, david reached down to shake that guy's hand, everyone cheered for that.
when they finished, i asked the guy next to me what he thought of Alma, and he said they were really good. so i went to the merchandise desk. i thought i would buy darren hanlon's new ep too, but $10 for three new tracks seems a bit wrong, while Alma had a whole album for $20.
me:"is this the only cd they had out?"
girl at the desk:"yeah, it's the album... you could get it signed too. they were just here earlier."
we were both looking around for a while as she completed the transaction..
girl:"OH, there they are!"
and they were stand right next to us all this time! got to meet the two girls in the band, say something stupid...
DARREN HANLON
woo! darren, the greatest songwriter in australia since ben folds, and ben folds isn't really australian either. or is he now? anyway, darren was cool. in between songs he'd tell us stories of his adventures around the world: people throwing tim tams at him in new york, buying secondhand underwear in sweden (they've got a weight rating. if he fell off a mountain or something, they can attach a crane to his underwear to lift him back up!), getting striped searched in american airports while in australian airports he just gets harassed about whether he was carrying any fruits.
mark pointed out to me how lethargic the drum player was. she was way cool. she was the coolest girl of the night for sure. she played the drums flawlessly, but she looked so out of it and uninterested. but in a totally cool way. during the show, there were a few songs where first the bass player walks off, then the drum player walks off for darren to do his own thing. then when she was meant to come back on, she just slowly strolled back to the drum kit, sat down, while darren was repeating the same bit waiting for her, she was just too cool to be rushed. she was way too cool.
darren played guitars, acoustic and electric, mark knows guitar and says darren was really good. he also played banjos and harmonica, once at the same time. we thought that was pretty tricky. there was also the cool girl on drums and xylophone, a guy on electric bass, and later on they brought one of the girls from Alma to play keyboards.
the coolest bit was near the end, during a more rocking song (by their standards) and then darren introduced the girl (i didn't catch her name) to do the quietest drum solo ever. then the bass player did a whistling solo, the bass player called for a "show-us-your-secondhand-underwear solo!" from darren, which got the crowd cheering. and then darren would shout out "country style!" and they'd play it country style. but the most cheers were reserved for when darren shout for an "experimental jazz rock style!" then they just fucked the song up and everyone was cheering.
we had to leave early to catch the train, but i didn't mind cause i'll probably drag everyone to go see darren again at homebake!
Top night, great ending to a horrid day.
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