Saturday Happenings

Who we saw:

Sky Larkin
Fastball
Anchorsong
Stereo Pony
Octopus Project
Efterklang
An Horse
Voxtrot
Backseat Goodbye
Marcy Playground

Notables:

Stereo Pony was an awesome example of straight ahead J-rock. The all-girl trio started off Japan Nite #2 in great fashion. And, as if they weren't cute enough as it was, knowing no English they read pre-translated messages to the audience in between songs along the lines of 'though we speak no English, we hope that we can share ourselves with you through our music. thank you.'

Caught the end of Efterklang's set on the way in to see An Horse and was very pleasantly suprised with what I heard.

Seeing Marcy Playground capped off our 1990's-early 2000's nostalgic trifecta (having already seen Third Eye Blind and Fastball), but there was a distinctly different feel to this show than the others. Where Third Eye Blind and Fastball both played relatively high profile venues (both being broadcast on tv), Marcy Playground came on stage a little after 1 am in a small courtyard nestled between two bars. The crowd was extremely strange, leaving me with the feeling that most didn't even really know who was about to come on stage. This show was one of the first that Marcy Playground has done in years and watching them was refreshing. It really felt like they were here to come out and play rock music. They made no effort to try and look younger or hip to make up for the fact that they were sick of playing the same songs over and over again. In fact, I think their hiatus did them good because they were able to play some of their older stuff with a grittyness that I think was missing in the very polished versions that Fastball and Third Eye Blind presented. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to see those two, but now that I have it's just kind of like, ok, that was interesting, but I have absolutely no need to see either of them again. Marcy Playground, on the other hand, can count on seeing me in the crowd next time they come through Boston.