The Max Levine Ensemble - Good Luck - Bomb the Music Industry - Delay -- Black Cat - Jan 8 2010

Delay - A power trio from Columbus, Ohio, a place I lived but never truly called home. They even had some fans making the long trek. Those fans along with the large local crowd were treated to a spirited half hour set of up-beat dose of power-pop-punk. I thought the double vocals gave the music an extra bit of thrust. It tapered off just a wee bit at the end in terms of energy, but it was an effective set nonetheless. These guys are together.


Bomb the Music Industry - A couple guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and plenty of vocal mics were the formula here. And the keyboardist broke out a trombone a few times. Trombone for a mostly high energy punk rock set? I have not seen that since I saw the Clitboys in Columbus, Ohio in the early 80s (Yes, I really did see a band called the Clitboys). There was plenty of abandon in this set and sometimes that was a detriment. The crowd was very much into the band when they were clicking which was more time than that. But a few times, it was a bit confusing like at sets end which landed with a bit of a thud. Still a decent time, although when they said we deserved a double drum solo, I wondered what we had done to them to deserve that.

Good Luck - A power trio with a female bass player who shared vocals with the guitarist. And by the way, my mentioning gender is to give an idea of the vocal stylings since we are long past the days where it is unique to the instrument playing side of the music. More good power-pop punk songs which is going to be the theme of tonight's show. I thought the were the steadiest of the bands tonight and there was some thoughts to the arrangements and some sneaky moves happening underneath the melody. Well done and I would love to see them again some time.

The Max Levine Ensemble - Many, many fans turned out for their tenth birthday party. These guys have deserved this celebration as they have played some great powerpop punk music over those ten years (or at least the couple of times I have seen them previously). Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty ill tonight (and still feel like crap as I plow through this review), so I left a bit early. But I wanted to see if they were on and whether the crowd was digging it. The answers were yes and yes.

Quote of the Night: Without getting it exactly correct, a Bomb the Music Industry member dedicated the set to the victims of the shooting in Tucson and talked about the stunning nature of political disagreements leading to such horrid conclusions. It was a good speech, although given the name of the band, it does show that maybe we do live in the age of irony.