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November 08, 2004

Suckerpunch

Posted by nerdling | November 8, 2004 02:01 PM

In a completely unsurprising show review, I'd like to report that Ted Leo was, as always, amazing. Even performing as a three-piece, he and his band put on an awesome rock show.

Lucero were quite good, though unpolished. The mix of bands seemed a bit strange, but it was nice to finally see Lucero, as I've been listening to them since Tennessee.

But before I conclude, I must describe The Lashes. For those who are curious, The Lashes are now tied for first place as the worst band I have ever seen, the other two being whitestarr and Atom and His Package. Comprised of a bunch of indie poster boys, sporting dyed black, fashionably dishevled hair and tight pants, they posed and pranced around the stage like they were on a catwalk rather than performing trite, idiotic, uninteresting songs about girls and being best friends.

Aside from being terrible they were also overstaffed, with two guitar players, one bass player, a drummer, a keyboard player and a lead singer. One guitar player looked suspiciously like Chris Kattan playing Mango, while the other looked like he was just in this band because Tortoise wouldn't have him. Adorably, they have all adopted "Lashes" as their last name in an attempt to suck some credibility out of the Ramones' legacy—not that anyone would ever confuse one for the other, as The Lashes are a black, airless vacuum of talent.

The real winner, though, was the keyboard player. I could have cheerfully shoved a pen through either—or both—of his eyes. Not only was he dancing and stomping around the stage as though the songs weren't morbidly awful, he was wearing a cap slightly too large for his head that kept sliding over his eyes, forcing him to squint coyly at the audience while he banged on the keys and squawked tonelessly along with the "singer." All in all, not the harbinger of a great evening, but Ted and Lucero pulled the evening out of the hole The Lashes dug.

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