Thursday, Mar. 05, 2009
Party like a rockstar weekend at the clubhouse Myrtle beach
Circles in Autumn
Last Friday night (Feb. 27) I went to The Clubhouse Myrtle Beach to see some rock bands and have a couple brews. It turned out that the night happened to be local musician, Jeremy Cote’s (aka Spider) birthday. Cote was the founding member of the hard rock band called Grill, who is no longer active, and a current member of the band Meat Rocket. The show was billed as Cote’s birthday party. Well, if you know Cote, you know the night was bound to get rowdy.
Like most rock shows in Myrtle Beach, the show started behind schedule. Scheduled to start at 9 p.m., things got rolling closer to 10. The first band to play was Circles in Autumn, who have recently formed quite a buzz about them. After the singer of Opeth, Mikael Akerfeldt, and Mike Pornoy, drummer of Dream Theatre, both sang the praises of C.I.A. to some of the right people, a major label started to take notice. They are talking to the label and recording some tracks for them to consider. I’ve seen them quite a few times and they get better every time. They just recently added a keyboardist, Thomas Brady. He takes what they are doing to another level. It was great to see this addition, as it seemed to add some pretty interesting textures. If you enjoy progressive metal, check these guys out. Singer Shaun Brown put it best at the end of the set when stating, “That’s what Willis was talking about!” I had no idea Willis was a prog-metal fan. That explains so much.
Up next was Suhgarim, from Columbia. I had forgotten that I have actually seen this band before. They opened up for Bulletboys at the now-defunct Sound Garden, the night of the infamous Shark Legs/Bulletboys fight. Suhgarim’s brand of classic rock-meets-metal sounded pretty good at The Sound Garden, but at The Clubhouse, they were having some major sound issues. Most of the band was using cordless mike, which in my experience are great for a big room, but not so great for small rooms. The guitar was also just way too loud. I think they are used to playing larger venues. They were not able to fix the problem and sludged through their set rather wearily. However, singer Tricia Fleury, still seemed to be making the best of it, running around the room and dancing with patrons while singing. Despite the sound, they were still pretty entertaining.
It was starting to get late, the place was packed, and the next band to play was Uncrowned, from Atlanta. They had a style similar to bands like Sevendust, Incubus, and Linkin Park, but with a rock attitude closer to Buck Cherry. While most of the bands I just mentioned pretty much repulse me, I thought that these guys actually kicked ass. They were super tight and they put on a good show. And to make matters even better they threw in a cover of Motley Crue’s “Live Wire” which sounded spot on. I probably wouldn’t be listening to their CD too much, but they are very good live. They ended their set with singing happy birthday to Spider, but in Italian!
Closing out the night were local hard rockers, The Izm. They had an almost completely new lineup: While keeping Jaesen Moore on lead vocals and Jason Woolley on guitar, they added new members Nadia Manigo on drums and Mike Kantor on bass. Merrill Weekley, who was their bassist, moved to guitar. The new lineup sounded great. And the addition of the second guitar filled up the spaces nicely. When the audience started begging for their cover of “Chop Suey” by System of a Down, they were hesitant to play it because they weren’t sure if the newbies were ready. After the birthday-boy, Spider, said he knew the song and got on stage to do it and then admitted that he couldn’t, or was just too drunk to, they gave it a shot and pulled off just fine. Throughout the set fans were singing along to Izm’s songs, and generally rocking out. They ended their set with a nice surprise: a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” While they did do a heavy version of it, Moore can do one hell of a Jackson interpretation. The “Party Like a Rockstar Weekend” night one ended just in time to get everyone out by 2 a.m. We did party like rock stars. Unfortunately the second night of the weekend was spent in recovery for me.