Friday, September 18th, 2009 WMNF 88.5 fm's
Cafe Hey Concert Series #2 with: Boulders, Neon Blud,
Slavescene,Robot
Ceremony DJ
Kelly Kombat & DJ Brian
Oblivion Cafe Hey
1540 North Franklin
Street
Downtown Tampa
8pm
free
This show was a collaboration with SuperTest'sTampa Park(ing)
Day,
where citizens, artists, and activists will transform parking spaces
into temporary public parks. The bands transformed minds into
mush.
Yeah, I wanted to check out the
SuperTest's Tampa Park(ing) Day street exhibit before this show fired
up so I headed down to Cafe Hey early. I was planning on parking
on that end of Franklin St. and then walking down and back up, checking
out all the different parking spot exhibits along the way and then
returning to Cafe Hey to see the bands. It turns out that I
neglected to read the small print and I soon found out that the exhibit
had shut down at 18:00 hrs. I found this out at around 18:30 hrs,
I felt like a dork. To hell with art, bring on the rock! It
was a nice night to be out, sitting outside the Cafe, waiting for the
ball to get rolling, as the sunlight made way for the night, watching
the clouds slowly pass over the tops of the skyline of downtown Tampa,
it all made for a pretty calm and peaceful setting. That all
changed when the first band of the night, Neon Blud, took the
floor. This was the first gig out for this new band and they
absolutely tore it up. Those familiar with the local unscene
might have recognized the members of this band, they also play together
in another project called Body Rot, but besides having identical
members there's a world of difference between the two, at least to
me. I'm having a hard time trying to put into words how this band
made me feel while they played, I was kind of in a state of disbelief,
I mean, they were just so good, I don't think they're even aware of how
good they really were, without a doubt, they're my new favorite
band. More Neon Blud! Tag teaming the DJ duties between
sets for the night were DJ Kelly Kombat and DJ Brian Oblivion, this was
cool because it meant that there were tunes rolling out during the
intermissions between bands. The next band up was Boulders,
the last time I heard them play was during the night sets at this
year's Bloodfest. That set really took my breath away.
Tonight they took things down a notch or two and kind of started things
off slow and easy, that didn't last for long though and things soon got
all hectic and jerky, then they eased back down, then back, free
falling and screaming into chaos. A really good set with a kind
of minimalist thread that unraveled and reformed a couple of times
over. It had started to rain sometime during this set but it
didn't really dampen the evening in much of any way, there's plenty of
cover available to still sit and stand outside while keeping out of the
rain. A little more DJ'ing to fill the gap between Boulders and
the last band of the night (Robot Ceremony ended up not playing this
gig, internal band conflicts, you know the score), Slavescene. I
consider this band a force to be reckoned with. They seem to come
out of the gate at a full gallop and don't really slow down anywhere
along the track and actually pick up speed on the turns, coming into
the straight away with even more power and drive, they're like an
audible atom smasher or something. They wound things up tonight
with a Germs cover, sweet. All the bands having played the
remainder of the evening was handed over to the DJ's who kept things
moving until everyone eventually made their ways off. This was
the second of WMNF's Cafe Hey concert series and as far as I'm
concerned it went off quite well. Thanks go out to all the people
who turned up, WMNF for sponsoring this event, Cafe Hey for providing
the space, all the bands for coming and rocking out, and Brigid, for
putting the whole thing together and making it happen. There'll
be another one of these free shows in October, if you're not there,
you're square.
