Artists: Electric Six, She Wants Revenge
Venue: Bowery Ballroom, NYC, NY
Date: February 12, 2006
There’s a fair amount of snow/sludge on the ground, and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of Electric Six. But upon repeated good recommendations from Alex, I drag myself out to the Bowery to catch them and their opener She Wants Revenge. Unbeknownst to me, SWR has been getting some serious hype as “the next Interpol”, and so I was caught quite unawares when I walked in and heard some pounding bass lines from this guy wearing a trenchcoat, and some singing reminiscent of Paul Bank’s coming from a guy wearing a tight leather outfit that had some disturbing similarities to South Park’s Mr. Slave. I must admit, however, that I was quite taken by their music, even though track after track seemed to be the same chord structure and only slightly varying rhythms. Also, I got a strong feeling the main guy was gay and/or living in the 80s still, from the way he was dancing (I almost want to describe it as ‘writhing’) on stage. As politically correct homophobes often say, “not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course”, but in this case, there was something wrong with that: there was something that seemed out of place. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I ignored it (big mistake…).
In any case, Electric 6 came on next, and I couldn’t believe them: their lead singer looked like he was a cubicle worker and dad (and probably not a very mature one at that), with a guitarist who looks ripped straight from some ‘I’m in my 50s and still hip’ magazine. The main guy’s singing/whining and no one really seems to be into it. The best part is probably this guy on bass who’s half smiling to himself, as if he alone realizes that this is kinda lame, and he’s just doing it to humor the main guy. Also, for some inexplicable reason, a mosh pit erupts in front of me, and I’m lucky enough to have some guy spill his entire beer all over my jacket. That pretty much clinched it for me, and after having endured a whopping 15 minutes of Electric Six, I called it quits and left.
Getting home, I saw that SWR was headlining a show in 2 months, and I bought tickets right away, still not paying attention to that nagging feeling I had in the back of my mind. Read about that experience up above…
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