They did the dance

Last night I was at Avalon with J. to see Scamper, the Cinematics, and ok go for the Boston Phoenix's 40th anniversary party. And what a party it was! Trendy kids, college kids, fancy pants businessmen and -women (at least I presume they were there, I don't remember seeing any), jackass fratboys, and just people like myself and J. who were looking for something to do on a Thursday night that was free.

We arrived there with tickets in hand, only to find that we really didn't need tickets. ANYONE could get in. My excitement over winning these "tickets" having evaporated, I was intent on having a good time, anyway. As we walked in there were a number of older, balding, white-haired people with suits looking like they were having a jolly time, and next to them kids who hardly even looked 21. What the hell would this show be like?

As we walked into the music hall, Scamper's music filtered through the doorway, and I was treated to my second dose of the band this year. Fortunately, they go down better the second time. I wasn't so impressed with them at the BCN rumble (in fact, I hated them), but they've come a long way since then. Not that they're anything great now, but they just seemed much more into what they were doing and not posing so much as they once did. Scamper was a more than halfway enjoyable act! But the joy was not to last. I can pinpoint when the fun ended - the band broke into a rousing cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," and if they had ended it there, the show would have been a success. The bassist pulled off a surprisingly great lead vocal for the tune, and everyone was loving it. Then they started with the posing again, and they became the Rockstars that perhaps they truly are. I think I rolled my eyes several times during the half of their act, it was truly uninspiring.

But not nearly as uninspiring as the next band, the Cinematics. All they really had going for them was an ultracute guitarist who played pretty effortlessly and marvelously. I don't know what was with the singer. He was trying to convey his pain, sorrow, anger, etc. about god knows what, and it was just offensive. Obscene? Maybe. It's one of the worst shows I've ever seen/heard in my life, completely unenjoyable. Every tune was a cheesy arena rocker with no substance whatsoever. On one of the tunes the singer sang "reach out and touch me" repeatedly, and I was like, OK, we know you're cribbing from Depeche Mode, you're really not that cool for doing it. He announced that one of their tunes was titled "Rise and Fall," and in the spirit of the band's relentless mimicking of 80s faux-emotion all I could think of was the Fixx tune "Stand or Fall," which is the greatest song in the world compared to anything the Cinematics could ever conjure up.

At this point, I mentioned to J. that popular rock music must once again reinvent itself because everyone's using the same musical cliches over and over again, and nothing is really fresh anymore. Unfortunately, it only takes a couple of years for the pop rock to go stale...and I think it's at that point now - it was fresh again with the Strokes, and ran its course with the arrival of Franz Ferdinand. The underground music scene is of course much different, and I dip into that on occassion, but most of my life I've been a (fringe?) mainstream rock kind of guy, and I gauge the music of the day generally by the quality of the more poppy stuff that the kids are listening to these days.

At any rate...next up was the band I was there to see, ok go. They breezed through a few songs, which were pretty good, there were a couple I recognized from "oh no." Nothing that knocked my socks off, though, and I considered calling it a night. I was upset that the the cute bass player was not actually the lead singer - from the videos that's what I thought. They fooled me! But he was still his cute bass-playing self, with a lot of energy, jumping around, etc. The lead singer had a camera on his mic, and they showed the video of his huge, really attractive face up on the screen, which was sort of surreal and very fun. Fortunately, we could not see very far up his nose, and he had a really sweet smile. He had good stage banter. They're a pretty hot looking band, as bands go these days, if I were a 14-year-old girl, I'd probably be the president of their fan club. But still, I almost left - there was a lack of energy, and they were going through the motions...that is, until they went for the gimmick - taking acoustic guitars in hand and heading for the middle of the dance floor to perform on a riser with the whole audience surrounding them. I rolled my eyes at first - it seemed for sure that this was going to be some lame thing...but it turned out to be terrific. They played "A Million Ways," which was phenomenally good, and some other tune that I didn't recognize. It was extremely cool how the audience was right up to the risers, as if the band was growing out of the people in the crowd. The band was lit up with powerful flashlights, which gave the whole scene a really cool feel. I've seen footage of the Beatles playing in a similar fashion, in the middle of a swarm of people, and this was a funky reminder of that. So anyway, this part of the show, though the quietest, rocked the most and was wicked impressive. The show kicked into higher gear when they took the stage again, they did a cover of a Damned tune, and were much more into things than previously. Definitely the best band of the evening and worth waiting for. And, yes, they did the dance at the end of their encore, and it was really, really cute and awesome, I think just about everyone in the hall was smiling by that point.