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January 7, 2005
The Divorce, The Carolines and Climber at Berbati's Pan, Portland OR, Friday, Jan. 7
Some nights you feel like Digital Underground, some nights you feel like a random assortment of struggling young Pac Northwest pop bands. Tonight was the latter, so I skipped on the DU and headed to Berbati's to be washed in melodramatic guitar rock from the Divorce and the Carolines.
The place was surprisingly packed with a lot of beautiful women and ugly guys (local boy pop=low level groupies, and guys attempting to catch from the spillover). The Carolines sounded like my band would have sounded in high school, if I would have had a band. The guys are young and have a lot of fun, but the songs aren't quite there. AC/DC licks and Robert Smith vocals. They do have some moments, including sparse and penetrating trumpet parts, played by the otherwise prepubescent guitarist with mutton chops. Thank god the trumpet is acceptable in the rock community now, shedding all those bad ska vibes its been carrying for far too long.
Most of the women left after the Carolines, which I was surprised at, considering the high cheek bones and dramatic name carried by the headliner, the Divorce. These guys--from Seattle--had some moments, but all the overt sentimentality and glaring frontlighting were a bit too much, as well as the fact that the leadsinger had a synth which he barely every played, opting instead to play superficial guitar parts completely overshadowed by the lead guitarist (and rightfully so). Whether a band has a synthesizer or not isn't crucial to their quality, but if you've got a keyboard on stage, in front of you, play it. Leave the guitar parts to the guitarist. You must rock out on the keyboards and make me believe in you.
I didn't believe in the Divorce, which is pretty much what I told the lead singer when I ran into him at Magic Gardens later that night. I'm surprised he didn't slug me.
Drinks drunk: 2 glasses of wine, 1 shot of jag, 4 beers, 2 whiskey on the rocks
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Posted by at January 7, 2005 6:01 PM
