Last night was an amazing night of epic musical proportions at Plan 9 records in Roanoke, the one located at Grandin. I'm talking about The Sad Cobras, Hot Lava and The Bastards of Fate playing there last night.
Being a retired music promoter, I have booked The Sad Cobras and The Bastards of Fate countless times, they have always been favorites of mine. Although I haven't seen them in a while, they seem to have gotten exponentially better since the last time I have seen them play. Hot Lava, I've only really seen once at the XYZ Gallery in downtown Blacksburg and anyone who has ever been to shows there would probably agree with me about the space being cramped as hell. I mean, it's a great venue, but sometimes when the turnout is better than expected and the shows are promoted a lot, too many people end up showing up causing the space to be too congested for me to enjoy the bands. But I guess mainly being an art gallery, space isn't too big of an issue when an art show is going on, because people come in and leave after a while.
Anyway, back to the music. Due to horribly confusing directions (thanks to a certain map website), I ended up getting there a little late, thus missing the bulk of The Sad Cobras' set. Nonetheless, I'm sure it was excellent. I caught the last couple of songs, full of shoegazy goodness as always. They closed the set with "Bodycast", which is a dance song that ironically sings about not being able to dance because the character in the song is stuck in a bodycast. This song always makes me sad, because people like to dance and the character is unable to and that's just really sad. I was really hoping to catch my favorite song off of the new album, which is the album title track "No More Graves" but I guess I'll just have to wait until I see them play next. But I'm going to save my raves about their first full-length for another post, because there are just too many good things about it.
Next was Hot Lava, garage-pop band from Richmond. I was surprised that they were playing a free show, because they were touring. Their slogan "Virginia is for Lavas" fits them quite well, because Virginia is for Lavas of music who will drive from Richmond to play a free show without any concrete expectations of being reimbursed for gas expenses. I don't know if it was my lack of personal space at their last show in Blacksburg at the XYZ Gallery, but I was not really expecting a good set. Luckily, they proved me wrong and I danced the whole way through their set. Their songs echoed with happy feelings of lazy hot summer afternoons at playgrounds and 100% fruit juice popsicles. I was all smiles!
The last band was The Bastards of Fate; it had been moons since I have seen them perform and I had missed them so. I had high hopes for their set and the band did not let me down, which seems to be pretty typical of their performances. They kicked off of with a crowd pleasing favorite "Digging up Dinosaurs" during which their fans cheered. The song starts with a random sampling of a woman speaking a foreign language. I've seen them play many times, but I have still yet to figure out what the foreign phrase means. Knowing the band though, it's probably something really silly. Their songs are intensely multi-layered, I still have a hard time realizing the fact that frontman Doug Cheatwood used to perform the majority of these songs solo before he met the rest of the band around two years ago. The rest of the set was filled with perfect pop melodies like "Police 9000" and "No one Ever Died", with the exception of "Harlequin Fetus". Now, this song is usually performed at a very speedy tempo, but this was the first time I saw them perform it at a slower tempo. Bassist Jason Wells announced, "This is Harlequin Fetus, as performed by Neurosis" and it indeed sounded very sludge metal at times. The Bastards of Fate wrapped up the set with "The Sweet Touch", a catchy song which popular yo-yo champion Drew Tetz used for one of his videos.
The band was ready to pack up, but the crowd would not let them go without an encore. They seemed a bit skeptical, but finally gave in and performed one more song. Which is when we all had the opportunity to witness "Zero Hour" in all of its wonderful melodrama. The song always made me think of thriller movies with police chases and quite possibly some explosions with a super hero flying by, carrying children and pets.
If you missed this show, then you missed out on a great show. However, if you'd like to live vicariously through my experience, then I suggest you head over to each band's respective website and purchase their recordings. The Sad Cobras have an excellent new album out called No More Graves, Hot Lava released Lavalogy earlier this year on Bar/None Records and The Bastards of Fate have More Than A Dozen Songs, which is a collection of Doug's solo recordings from the past few years, available on iTunes and through their myspace. The Bastards of Fate are working on their first band release with no release date in mind, just yet. But I'm sure that all of their fans are sitting tight waiting for the day the new album is released.
Also, if you are looking to attend a show at Plan 9 at Grandin, make sure you make it out to tomorrow night's show. Boys Lie of the Magic Twig Community and Mommies (featuring members of the Disappearers Collective and Social studies) are playing.
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