Buy the ticket, take the ride. ~Hunter S. Thompson
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| Garpike at the Snout |
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| Written by John Abbott | |||
| Sunday, 08 February 2009 01:33 | |||
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I had a case of my typical luck, as I walked into the Snout in the final 30 seconds of the first set. It had been a long week of not knowing if I was going to attend or not. I knew I had seen the band Garpike before. But, I couldn't remember anything about them. I knew their name rang some sort of bell, I just didn't know if it was good or bad. The bar was quite full. A large section of band fans were on the pool table, the tables were filled, and so about the closest I could get was mid bar. It is nice to see the bar busy. They have had some slow nights during that cold weather. Chad, the barkeep, was back to health after his unfortunate golf cart incident in the fall. ;-) A good thing. Perhaps as a sign of the times, he was behind the full bar alone. He did an amazing job to serve that crowd. In the band fans, there was a woman who looked far too much like the Sarah Palin phenomena to be accidental. She seemed to be with a sixtyish, greying white male, in a well made sweater. Evidently she and her husband must brand Garpike's music as socialism free. OK, the music itself. Let me first start out by saying, I am not a fan. I didn't really like their music. It was sort of punk-ish. The dedicated lead singer was sort of a glowering, dark cloud. He sang it was I could best describe by saying "discord". So imagine the band as a piano, it would be like the singer would only be singing the black keys. It is an odd sound. But, I grant, sometimes it did work. What I kept feeling, as I was listening, was; the beginning of the songs were really annoying. Where the singer is just sort of rote-ing it out. But then, when he began to get into the end of the song, it really started to work. It was like the additional stress levels he was putting into his voice, would suddenly pull harmonics of the song together. And, when the song was over, I found myself saying. "Wow! That was really cool. That really rocked!" I would tell myself, maybe I had been too harsh on these guys. But, then the next song would start, and I would find myself saying "Oh, boy, I hope this improves..." I called it a bit of a short night. It had been a super late night, the night before and at one point I said, I can't go through the wait, and I was outta there. Now, that all being said, I want to add that this is my opinion. And, I think I was one of the very few in the bar who felt this way. The bar was tuned into the music, from mid point forward, toward the stage. There were a lot of people in the crowd who were there to see the music. The responded enthusiastically and were having a good time. There was even a cliche drunken air guitar player in front of the lead singer a couple of times. The audience felt these guys were hot. So there. I do have to say that the guitar playing of Thai Juan was spectacular. He could strum a fast rhythm and he really gave the music sort of a south of the border sound. It was a pleasure to watch him play and even more of a pleasure to hear him. So my final word. I dunno. People liked them. I found redeeming qualities. They might be worth the trip again.
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| Last Updated on Sunday, 18 October 2009 18:28 |
