When I first got back from this show my immediate reaction was to sit down and write a review, but it was so damn late, and I was pretty intoxicated. I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to write it right then. I decided to put it off until the weekend, but that didn't happen either. Now, four days later, I know I don't remember everything awesome about everything I wanted to mention, but there are a few things that I can cover here with confidence.
First off, I went with two of the four ex-roomates, The Vegan and The Pharmacist. Since they are no longer part of a much larger circle of people that I frequently refer to in my life, I can from here on in call them by their real names, Lee and John, respectively.
First thing I should mention about this show was the venue. A small club in the Fishtown area of Philly, two floors, definitely posh, definitely not a place I would be going to if it weren't for the group performing that night. I don't know what other events happen there, but I can say that nothing led me to believe that anything but electronic music was played there in the last ten years. Also, the people there were more or less dressed way nicer than I ever would dress to go out on a Thursday night to see a group perform, and absolutely beautiful. I'm talking like hand picked top of the line Philly 20-30 crowd photo shoot stuff. Even the fat chicks looked good. Not hot, but good.
We got there during the tail end of a little group called GANG playing, consisting of a bass player, a drummer and two female singers who could try a little harder to look better if they're going to be relying on their charm and and looks to sell the crowd on their music. They were a direct rip off of the B-52's, with that kind of mis-matched we make our own outfits but don't look as good as Punky Brewster edge to them. The two girls sang over a taped track written by the two remaining band members, while the drummer plays his riffs while listening to headphones and the bass player stands in place with her back half turned to the crowd looking like some soggy unenergized cross between Kurt Cobain and Janice Tanaka (but less cool).
Regardless of what they looked like, their music was forgettable. The beats/riffs/hooks/bass/whatever wasn't anything remotely funky enough to support the energy of the two singers, who had forgettable voices but kind of nice smiles. They did a pretty gray cover of Rock Lobster (suprise!), and even though we only saw two more songs (three more songs?) after that, the only thing I can still remember from their performance is the choreography of the interactions between the two girls, which was more weird and over-thought-out than entertaining. I'm not sure if they were going for funky or performance art, but if you're going to be doing this kind of thing with this kind of "listening to this in the background at work and not really paying attention" music they really should pick one and run with it.
Seondly a group I can't remember played, and I'm not going to comment on them, because I honestly didn't have any feelings for or against them, but I am going to comment on the group's DJ spinning a 20 minute set of not-quite-main-floor house music before the group went on.
Number 1- What is the deal with that?!
Number 2- Where the fuck is all the vinyl?
Number 3- Just because you can cue some tracks up doesn't mean you deserve to be called a "DJ".
Lastly Bonde do Role came on.
WOO!
They were great. I mean, its pretty hard to screw up a performance when you're in a group like that when 90% of the crowd doesn't even know what you're saying anyway, when your DJ has the shit already cued up on his laptop, and when you look as good as Marina does. However, their energy was over the top, their little stage antics are just incredibly hot and somewhere in my heart it just makes me so happy to see bands from all over the world do well in other countries. It was also a little gold star in my heart to see a group from another country perform, especially one that plays music that I otherwise would not have been exposed to if it weren't for my former roomates. On a final note, they all looked like they were having loads of fun, and everyone in the place was enjoying them on top of that.
When we got back to John's house, somewhere around 3am, Lee ran upstairs and put his stereo on full volume. He then tripped and fell somewhere and put a hole in John's wall.
So that's pretty much what I remember from that night. If you're really interested in reading some technical stuff about Bonde or just a better review of their performance, I'm sure you can google something up. I read a few over the weekend and well, its pretty much the same thing no matter what. Just keep in mind the next time they roll into town, and you're not sure if you should go or not, that Marina is way hotter in person than any picture of her I have ever seen.
