Pop Hardcore and the last bus home

Check out the ticket above. A few things to mention. Firstly the fact that the show was at a music diner. We had been to the diner before and it seemed fairly small. Heading past the bar to the back, though, there was a pretty big stage and plenty of room for maybe 250 or so people. Secondly, one of the strangest things to us anyway, was that you were allowed into this bar to see the show if you were under 21, but you had to pay $3 on top of your not all that cheap $13 ticket. Not sure if the 20 year old me would be happy I could at least go or pretty hacked off that I had to fork out another $3! Finally the ticket would seem to suggest that we would be able to see all of F**ked Up and head off for the last bus during Wavves's set.

After a sprightly opening set from the Witches of Kelso (a local band sounding not unlike the Butthole Surfers at times) we were told Wavves would be on next. Disappointed to say the least. How much you enjoyed their set would depend upon your opinion of "slacker rock". After not that many tunes we decided that we weren't all that impressed. It seems that there are only so many times you can sing about being bored, going to the beach, smoking weed and just generally not being all that happy. That you're 22, live in San Diego, tour the world and get paid $30,000 to knock out an album on garage band apparently doesn't seem to cut it for Nathan. Lots of people lap it up though and leave when he is done.

FU set up in pretty good time and ripped into "The Other Shoe" from their 76 minute rock opera David Comes to life. Pink Eyes (above) was relatively restrained and took until at least the 5th or 6th tune before he joined us on the floor looking back at the stage. The t-shirt was lost much sooner though and the normal pose assumed. They really were great and just have so much going on; three guitars all playing amazingly intricate lines... Thinking back to how popular those really bad nu-metal bands (Linken Park, Limp Bizkit...) were a few years ago, FU really should be massive. Maybe their name is holding them back. Having started about 11.15 the clock was ticking on our 12:0something bus.

As the clock struck midnight we left a little annoyed, but happy that they had played a good load of stuff we wanted to hear. Got the bus home 5 minutes later having decided that the 2+ mile walk would have been a bit much.