Neptune, Bread and Roses, The Cankickers, Gutterhelmet, Dreamhouse

Last night, Matt, Cate, and I found the Harvard Social Forum for some vegan food (er, we ate first) and some noise and rock music.

Neptune

Technical malfunctions everywhere. The snare broke during the first song, the hi-hat didn't show up until the third song, the bass stopped working before the last song, and the snare fell over during the final improve jam session. Once the snare fell over the drummer lost it and threw stuff around.

Despite all this, the music was excellent. I finally got my hands on their original studio album. They're playing at Pan 9 in a few weeks, check them out.

Bread and Roses

They started out fun and fast, but eventually it turned too folky. Good music, just not the kind of stuff that I'm into.

The Can Kickers

A week back, when I told Matt about this show, I described The Can Kickers as a fiddler, banjo player, and washboard player performing wild rock. After this set, Matt agreed.

The drummer is absolutely nuts. I've never seen anyone so happy to pound away on a snare or washboard. At the end of the set he smashes the washboard while the audience tries to make the fiddle and banjo play faster by clapping. (I already had a piece of washboard from the last time I saw them, so I gave a piece to Cate.)

Wild stuff, be sure to see them.

Gutterhelmet

Cate left between the Can Kickers and Gutterhelmet, so I ended up missing some of this set. What I walked in on was song awesome math rock; as I got to the front I discovered a drumkit in the back left corner and an accordion in the front right. They rocked. Hard.

Dreamhouse

We took a seat in the very comfortable couches while the next band set up, which is just as well since it made their performance more of a shock. When my "they're going to play" sense started to tingle we found our way to the front, I thought. There were two drumkits, facing each other; a guitarist behind them; and some microphones and drumsticks laying around. The audience had twenty or so people remaining. They began playing, I think, with some noise from the guitar and one of the drums, when the back door flew open and people ran in, yelling, carrying a very large blue tarp. A bright light was turned on as we were covered in blue tarp. Immediately the audience knew what to do: pass the blue tarp so that it encompasses everyone, shake it, and yell. The light went off, inspiring the audience to pick up the drumsticks and bang on the drums.

I'm also reminded of this story from Sarah (from memory):

I was in a metal band for a week. I was the drummer, except we didn't write a drum part, so I just kinda sat there and banged on stuff when I felt like it. We played at my high school because, ya know, it was an art high school, so we were art.

I've to admit, I'm a sucker for performance art.

Tags: upcoming:23627, livemusic, neptune, breadandroses, cankickers,thecankickers , gutterhelmet, aleckredfearn, dreamhouse, performanceart, harvardsocialforum