The Night Marchers, The Creepy Creeps, The Cheap Leis @ Belly Up 7.17.08
This is my first time blogging, so I am about as nervous as a guy going up to a random girl at a bar, “How’s it going? Uh, uh, uh,…” But like that guy, I am still going to give it a shot.
It's a long post, so rather than take up the entire page, to read the whole details of the crazy night click on the "keep on reading..."
I had my plans all set for Thursday night, Team Abraham and Earlimart at the Casbah. Then around 2pm a text came through from my friend Ryan “Are you going to the Night Marchers tonight.” It totally surprised me, first off, I haven’t seen or heard from Ryan since he got married about 3 months ago. Second, he is one of those guys that is just… Awesome, but seems just as allusive as his awesomeness. So I made a quick audible and decided to meet up with Ryan and see the legendary John Reis at the Belly Up.
I made my way up to Solana Beach early and stumbled upon what seemed to be the human equivalent of a dog park for kids. The park was teeming with kids, running rampant, jumping on benches, rolling on the ground, these were suburban kids finally able to let loose. Behind all this was a singer-songwriter playing mellow beach-style music, his covers included Sublime and Neil Young. Can’t remember his name, but now I know there is a concert series called Concerts at the Cove by the Lifeguard station in Solana Beach. Being a family scene, it ended at dark and I went for food and drink.
After grabbing a few beers at Tidewater (Pizza Port was too crowded), I headed over to meet Ryan at the Belly Up. We were there early enough to catch The Cheap Lei’s, which was cool because I always wonder how San Diegans playing Hawaiian music would sound. The venue was pretty empty at that point, and the music set a good mood for people who were just getting there and talking with their friends, but I couldn’t help but think how I would love to see them at a day time outdoor show and sip on some Mai Tai’s. They also did a cool Hawaiian rendition of a RFTC song, though I don’t know the name of the song.
Next up were The Creepy Creeps and they brought it hard. All of them had on World War II motorcycle helmets and green zombie masks, and were flanked by two Go-Go dancers with large cartoon eyes on their chests and cartoon monster mouths on their chonies. It was the perfect visual compliment to their organ driven zombie rawk mayhem. Their stage presence was great, I kept thinking the coffin case keyboard would fall to the floor any second with all the rawkous playing. On top of that, there were two giant dudes in grease monkey jumpsuits and Mexican wrestler masks dancing throughout the crowd. The bassist kept the crowd entertained in between songs with banter of “this next song is a dance tune” “this song is a grinding song, you know, like you did in junior high” and finally as a guy was offering the bassist a beer, he said “no, I don’t drink, cause then I would end up sleeping with you.” I couldn’t help but really dig these guys.
Lastly, was John Reis’ band The Night Marchers. Taking the stage slimmed-down and tan, dressed in dark grey polyester pants and a vertically striped 70s shirt, he seemed like the happiest guy in the room. They came out blaring in traditional RFTC fashion, and Reis’ perfect bright-white grill seemed as though it could chomp your head off with every raspy line sung into the microphone. Reis owned his guitar and rocked some great solos that fit perfectly with the songs. In the middle of the set, with dark spots seeping through the polyester shirt, Reis described to the audience how the set was diagrammed, “High, then low, and then bringing it back up even higher to end.” This said, even the low was great, with a kind of funky, bluesy slow song that really had an amazing groove, props to the drummer, he killed it. As they brought back up the energy, the crowd responded with lots of jumping, and beer being thrown in the air, at a “divier” bar the crowd would have gone completely insane. When they ended it seemed like the set had flown by, sure enough the crowd cheered for more and got it. But Reis explained with a huge smile, “You aren’t getting more than you should, we just shortened the front half, so with the encore you are only getting the full amount, not extra. An insider tip into the music business.” They rocked out two more songs and left the stage. I couldn’t tell who had more fun that night, the crowd or Reis. It was a great show and all the bands brought something unique and awesome. And Ryan, you should hang out more.
-Dagart
keep on reading...
It's a long post, so rather than take up the entire page, to read the whole details of the crazy night click on the "keep on reading..."
I had my plans all set for Thursday night, Team Abraham and Earlimart at the Casbah. Then around 2pm a text came through from my friend Ryan “Are you going to the Night Marchers tonight.” It totally surprised me, first off, I haven’t seen or heard from Ryan since he got married about 3 months ago. Second, he is one of those guys that is just… Awesome, but seems just as allusive as his awesomeness. So I made a quick audible and decided to meet up with Ryan and see the legendary John Reis at the Belly Up.
I made my way up to Solana Beach early and stumbled upon what seemed to be the human equivalent of a dog park for kids. The park was teeming with kids, running rampant, jumping on benches, rolling on the ground, these were suburban kids finally able to let loose. Behind all this was a singer-songwriter playing mellow beach-style music, his covers included Sublime and Neil Young. Can’t remember his name, but now I know there is a concert series called Concerts at the Cove by the Lifeguard station in Solana Beach. Being a family scene, it ended at dark and I went for food and drink.
After grabbing a few beers at Tidewater (Pizza Port was too crowded), I headed over to meet Ryan at the Belly Up. We were there early enough to catch The Cheap Lei’s, which was cool because I always wonder how San Diegans playing Hawaiian music would sound. The venue was pretty empty at that point, and the music set a good mood for people who were just getting there and talking with their friends, but I couldn’t help but think how I would love to see them at a day time outdoor show and sip on some Mai Tai’s. They also did a cool Hawaiian rendition of a RFTC song, though I don’t know the name of the song.
Next up were The Creepy Creeps and they brought it hard. All of them had on World War II motorcycle helmets and green zombie masks, and were flanked by two Go-Go dancers with large cartoon eyes on their chests and cartoon monster mouths on their chonies. It was the perfect visual compliment to their organ driven zombie rawk mayhem. Their stage presence was great, I kept thinking the coffin case keyboard would fall to the floor any second with all the rawkous playing. On top of that, there were two giant dudes in grease monkey jumpsuits and Mexican wrestler masks dancing throughout the crowd. The bassist kept the crowd entertained in between songs with banter of “this next song is a dance tune” “this song is a grinding song, you know, like you did in junior high” and finally as a guy was offering the bassist a beer, he said “no, I don’t drink, cause then I would end up sleeping with you.” I couldn’t help but really dig these guys.
Lastly, was John Reis’ band The Night Marchers. Taking the stage slimmed-down and tan, dressed in dark grey polyester pants and a vertically striped 70s shirt, he seemed like the happiest guy in the room. They came out blaring in traditional RFTC fashion, and Reis’ perfect bright-white grill seemed as though it could chomp your head off with every raspy line sung into the microphone. Reis owned his guitar and rocked some great solos that fit perfectly with the songs. In the middle of the set, with dark spots seeping through the polyester shirt, Reis described to the audience how the set was diagrammed, “High, then low, and then bringing it back up even higher to end.” This said, even the low was great, with a kind of funky, bluesy slow song that really had an amazing groove, props to the drummer, he killed it. As they brought back up the energy, the crowd responded with lots of jumping, and beer being thrown in the air, at a “divier” bar the crowd would have gone completely insane. When they ended it seemed like the set had flown by, sure enough the crowd cheered for more and got it. But Reis explained with a huge smile, “You aren’t getting more than you should, we just shortened the front half, so with the encore you are only getting the full amount, not extra. An insider tip into the music business.” They rocked out two more songs and left the stage. I couldn’t tell who had more fun that night, the crowd or Reis. It was a great show and all the bands brought something unique and awesome. And Ryan, you should hang out more.
-Dagart
Labels: belly up, The Cheap Leis, The Creepy Creeps, the night marchers
keep on reading...
posted by Dagart on Monday, July 21, 2008
2 comments
links to this post
