Recent Concert Reviews: Shows We Didn't See (Plus One We Did)

As usual, we miss a lot of shows that we really should attend.

First off, why were we unaware of the existence of Emilie Autumn, "the vegan, bi-polar, asexual Victorian industrial, classically trained violinist, who has a tattoo on her arm of her cell-block number from her stay in the mental. Oh, and she's also obsessed with rats." (Pitch). Sadly, we missed her show at the Beaumont, much of which, based on the Pitch's review, consisted of the women on stage making out with each other and, at one point, a member of the audience:

"Veronica invited an 18-year-old girl with hot-pink hair onstage, who was wearing little cardboard rat ears... After much titillating fanfare -- an eskimo kiss, a hair caress -- Veronica smooched the girl passionately, knocking off her cardboard rat ears," while "An upsetting number of bearded dudes with ponytails and leather jackets stood toward the back of the venue with their hands in their pockets."

Chip: "If I'd only known about this show, I could have been one of those dudes."



















We also missed the Get Up Kids return to a hometown stage last night at the Bottleneck (we'll assume their return was triumphant). The Pitch says:

"Outsiders tend to dwell on the whole emo thing, holding the Get Up Kids responsible for the rash of sappy dreck that flooded the airwaves with whiny tales of unrequited love in the early '00s."

Richard: "Well, yes, I do hold them personally responsible for that dreck, so much so that I didn't indulge in my desire to attend last night's show and sing along with 'Mass Pike' with the rest of the aging scenesters. Do I regret my decision? Yes."

Chip: "I still love emo. But only new emo."

Another recent show we didn't attend: Tapes n' Tapes at the Jackpot. The Pitch says:

"...some of Tapes' cables weren't working, or the Jackpot's speakers weren't working correctly. For a brief moment, I was nervous that the show would be called off and that Tapes would suffer the same fate Tame Impala did in November. Luckily, the show went on, and Tapes began to play. (The sound was terribly distorted, though. I had a hell of a time hearing vocals and keyboards.)"

Looks like things never change at the Jackpot!

So what WAS hip enough to lure us out over the weekend? We chose the ukulele stylings of Sadie Mae at the Replay. Silencing a crowd of hipsters with a lovely version of "Tonight You Belong To Me," from The Jerk, Sadie then held us in thrall with an adorable song about her cat (sometimes it wants food and sometimes it gets in the shower with her) and a song about her fondness for Pokemon. Prior to Sadie's short set, we might have thought Larryville was over-saturated with adorably quirkly ukulele-strummers, but she proved us dead wrong.

















Following Sadie was MAW, Larryville's all-female traditional bluegrass act, who cozily draped a (presumably self-stitched) quilt across the stage before their hoedown. Here's hoping this idea catches on. We'd love to see a quilt from the Rooftop Vigilantes.