A Night at the Angels Roadhouse

Thank goodness, my hometown isn't quite so devoid of culture as I feared. A scan of the local paper today revealed a local band, Dionysos, playing somewhere called the "Angel's Roadhouse Bar and Grill" around a half-hour's drive from my parents' place. I myspaced the group, found it was some pretty heavy psychedelic stuff that was polished but humdrum, eh, they might be better live, so I roped my mom into comming with me and we took off through the thick, unseasonal fog into the wild unknowns of Yukaipa, California.

Angel's Roadhouse is exactly that. A Roadhouse. It was kinda seedy, it was full of rednecks and drunken regulars and the odd fan actually there to listen to the music. "Roadhouse" was also the name of the first band of the night, and funnily enough, they also happened to be the best band of the night. Bluesy, heavy southern rock, and four excellent musicians, but what was unique about them was that they were the only group of the night that felt like a GROUP. They really fed off eachother and read eachother's minds the way only the tightest rocking units do. One memorable moment was when the bass player, a massive blond with even more massive hair, broke a string and the duo of lead singer and lead guitarist teamed up on a delicate two-man peice to cover for him while he changed it. The lead singer was also a blond with big hair, loose limbs and the most by way of stage-crafty leaps and bounds. The guitarist was a brunette, not a blond. He handled his instrument effortlessly and the guy oozed the blues, clearly wriging all the glory he could out of his solos. He took over lead vocals for some songs and his voice was true, but unlike the other standouts of the evening, he didn't leave his band in the dust: he complemented them, they complemented him back, and the four of them rocked like they shared the same mind. Well done, boys, I am now a fan of yours.

After such a display of unity, the next act, "Stage IV Sleep", was a bit jarring in their disjointedness. I have a soft-spot in my heart for the classic rock four-peice line up: one singer, one bass player, one drummer, one guitarist, and these guys had some fans in the audience, cheering along and shouting back, but there was something off about them. The singer in question looked like he would have been more at home in a football jersey, sprinting towards the ten yard line then prowling the stage shouting profanity at the imaginary punk club moshing in his head. And I'm supposed to buy this buff jock is screaming about existential angst? The bass player was huge and sported a bleached mohawk, so he looked like he maybe could be wierd enough to actually be musical, but there was nothing really special about his bass playing either. The drummer was an Asian in glasses and a ski cap who chewed on his upper lip the whole time. The guitarist was a skinny, ropey, left-handed, bespecticled who looked for all the world like the kind of guy the Lead Singer would, ideally, be shoving face-first down a toilet. The guitarist was the stand-out of that band, standing with his skinny leg perched defiantly on the amplifyer, churning out the buff, punk-metal riffs that gave the songs their character. But like the restless pacing of the singer symbolized... I just couldn't figure out what they were doing there. Their fans liked them. I didn't.

The electric something machine. I wish I could remember their full name. The band itself? Meh. But they had emotion, and it seemed sincere. The singer was a hairy mountain creature, thrashing his vocal cords like any self-respecting metal fan. But they had the best musician of the evening. Their drummer was nothing short of a marvel: two of his drums were painted with a mountain scene, and ya know, given his expansive ten-arms-at-least sound, it was an apt metaphor for his playing. I couldn't have told ou about the string section, or about what songs they played (except a Rage Against the Machine cover which just revealed how short a guitarist can fall when compared to Tom Morello) but that drummer? Brilliant. All I can think is how he really deserves a better band then he's currently in.

As for the headliners, the ones I came to see? Dionysos? I really wanted to like them. They were polished, professional, and excellent musicians, in fact, if the drummer had competition for the runaway best musician of the night, it was that fluid, virtuosic bass player. But they had no chemistry. And their music had no personality. They were putting my mom to sleep. I felt sorry for them, because they played last, the place was empty, and no one seemed to be listening, and they had all the right ingredients, including heart; they WANTED to do well. And it just didn't work.

It was a late, late night. It's time to sleep