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The Mooney Suzuki with The Sahara Hotnights,
The Washdowns, and Crash of '59
The Cleveland Agora
10-10-02
Cleveland's Crash of '59 were a few songs into their set
when I arrived at the Agora. Musically these guys had it going on,
playing a solid set of high speed punk in the vein of The New Bomb Turks.
However, the lead singer could stand to move around a bit more.
Next up were the Washdowns, and they immediately scored
bonus points with me for their guitar player's killer afro. Of course,
cool hair only goes so far but they had the tunes, as well. There's
getting to be about a million bands doing this garage rock revival thing
now, but The Washdowns play the style as well as anyone.
The Sahara Hotnights, an all female band from Sweden played
a blistering set of seventies style hard rock. The Runaways are an
obvious influence, but probably not anymore so than AC/DC or KISS. No
"jailbait" image, either. These ladies just focused on the music.
By the time the Mooney Suzuki took the stage, the crowd was
thoroughly warmed up and ready to rock. I wasn't real impressed with
this group's album, 'The Electric Sweat', but live was another story
altogether. Sort of like the difference between the first three KISS
albums and 'Alive'. Songs that had seemed weak to me in their studio
incarnations roared to life in concert. Lots of jumping, posing, and
running into the crowd on the band's part as they tore through their set.
If they can just capture that same energy on their next album, I'll be
completely converted. (Bob Ignizio)
Check out some
pictures from the
show while you're here.
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