A Hullabaloo! at Public Assembly
Normally I am not encouraged by the fact that six bands are on a bill, at least not for a normal Friday or Saturday night show. A festival or some such thing would be a different story. Normally, though, the problem with such lineups is that there is almost always one (or more) bands which suck, or which just don't fit in with the rest of the lineup, or which for whatever reason should not be there. A friend of a friend of the club owner's little brother has a band... and they're on third. Yay.
The Hullabaloo! at Public Assembly on April 23rd proved to be a welcome exception. There were no slackers on this bill, and every band fit nicely under the garage-punk umbrella. Even better, the audience loved them. The crowd got rowdier and more fun as band after band rocked them hard. Moshing, crowd surfing by both audience and band members, beer flying everywhere. There was even a food fight. Yes, headliners The Othermen brought out a couple of cheese pizzas because they're carefree and generous. As a result their lead singer took one extra-cheesy projectile to the face, and another to the chest. No injuries were reported, but my shoes smelled like vomit the next day from ground-in sauce and cheese.
The Siberians (aka Olaf and the Siberians)
The Rats
The 45 Adapters
Teen Anger
The Back C.C.s
The Othermen
The crowd takes over...
Even better, the show was videotaped! Killer Diller Records is releasing the first album by The Othermen and taped the whole thing. If the results are good you might want to go hunt it down 'cause this could become a legendary show.
Hopefully there will be another show like this from the Hullabaloo! guys real soon. I'm a little worried, though. I seem to recall telling a friend that this show would be "harder to clean up after than Woodstock". We'll see whether they get invited back...
