Christ on a crap-stick, it was cold tonight, even when making the relatively short walk from the Belmont to Paychecks, which was the area I based myself in. The shuttle doesn’t work for me; I always seem to get there exactly ten seconds after one has just left, leaving me with a fifteen minute wait until the next one. I usually don’t mind driving around, but this evening, parking the car and then just walking between three venues (I hit the Whiskey In The Jar once) seemed preferable to trying to find a parking space at every venue. Fortunately, the Belmont and Paychecks had more than enough to keep me entertained, along with the many local musos that were pouring in and out of the door – I had a particularly engaging conversation with Jeff Howitt and his good lady and band mate Laura Willem which, by the end, had the couple challenging my wife Toni and I to a serious night of competitive Uno. Your ass is grass, Howitt.

As for the bands, they can be summarized as such:

• Michael Seger predictably isn’t as good as his namesake Bob, but then he isn’t to blame for his surname. His music got a little tedious after the second song, but any of his tracks would be at home on the soundtrack to any teen movie.
• Fawn are fucking amazing. The harmonies are lush and polished, and the songs are beautiful. My favorite band tonight.
• I thought I had seen Macrame Tiger before, at the Berkley Front, and a quick look at my gig journal confirms the fact (yes, I keep a gig journal). However, the band that I saw tonight seemed to be completely different; less wacky and more intent on the stripped-down Arcade Fire-isms. Still great though.
• Carjack, AKA LoFi Bri, is a nutbag. I have rarely laughed more at a concert than I did when he, wearing an ET mask, did jumping jacks to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”. It's impossible to say why it was so funny, it just was. His own music was rowdy and fun, but it barely mattered.
• Jesus Chainsaw Massacre were tearing up newspaper and wrestling in the mess. Yet nother band more about the presentation that the product.
• Decibilt are the band that Anvil want to be. So much fun in that metal arena show, crowd participation-y way. The temptation to throw up some devil horns and “HELL YEAH” is practically impossible to ignore.

Are we halfway through this thing already?