Camper van Beethoven/Mystery Band - State Theatre - January 8 2009

Some unknown band from Arlington who was not on the State's website or their posters or anywhere aside from the merch table which I forgot to visit on the way out. Oh well, a nice young slightly garagey rock band that was perfectly acceptable to open the show for a half hour. And those key buzzwords above generally mean I enjoyed the outing, but not enough to pay to see them or even grab their free CD-Rs. But it was close and they looked young.

Camper van Beethoven celebrated their 25th aniversary recently, although members also play as Cracker and various solo projects, they still make it out in their original form now and then. I remembered them as a college rock outfit but didn't have a whole lot of specific memories. As they played, they certainly had some nice things going in in a light psyche, folk, rock format with some catchy riffs now and then. I did enjoy the covers I picked up on. Their take on Status Quo's (yes, the Quo back when they were psychedelic for about 4 minutes) Pictures of Matchstick Men was great with the violin taking on the cool guitar parts. Truth be told, I thought it was a Pretty Things song until I went through my CD collection. Anyway, Camper also did a punk medley of slow versions of White Riot by the Clash, Wasted by the Circle Jerks and a third song I didn't recognize. Angry Samoans maybe? And just when I thought I wouldn't recognize an original song, they went into "Take the Skinheads Bowling" which is a cute song and quite hard to forget.

A good fun ninety minute set plus encores. Another bonus that always seems to get lots of extra credit is when a band uses a violin, viola, or flute. In Camper's case, the violin was used over half the time, with a third guitar going the rest of the time in a non-Molly Hatchett sort of way, thankfully.

Odd Moment of the Night: No interesting quotes, unless it was the scream done by the guy in my metro car that everyone tried to ignore as he screamed an laughed constantly through about five stops. He also rode between the cars when moving and joined us in the car on the stops. We all did are Big City best in the art of ignorng, while keeping peripheral vision active. Fun, fun, fun.