Yesterday was a great day.
CoolMom and I dropped the kids off at their Sunday religious school (I'm not a religious person, but I'll take 2.5 hours of freedom on a Sunday morning.) and headed over to the Red Bank Farmers' Market. The pickings are kind of slim this time of year, but CoolMom and I got some breakfast pastries from the Cinnamon Snail vegan food truck (Delicious, but coffee with soy milk is pretty blech.) and picked up some provisions for Sunday dinner.
Afterwards, we headed home and grabbed CoolDog for a long walk through Huber Woods. It was probably a mistake to let him lead us around, because we got pretty lost and almost missed picking up the cooldaughters on time. The three of us had a good time, though.
At home, I watched the Jets stun the New Orleans Saints while CoolMom and CoolDaughter #2 baked a pumpkin pie with an actual sugar pumpkin and CoolDaughter #1 worked on her book report. Before dinner, my mom-in-law came over for a cocktail, and we all listened to CD1's presentation. Then I remembered that The Black Lips were playing at Asbury Lanes. Normally, I'd cap off a Sunday like yesterday by watching The Walking Dead, but I decided to head out and catch what promised to be an excellent show.
Asbury duo, The Black Jesuses, opened. With Dave Rosen on guitar and Sam Bey on drums, the pair did a set of heavy blues rock featuring songs from their upcoming debut LP and some well-chosen covers.
Atlanta's Subsonics were next. The trio turned in a, roughly, forty-five minute set of garage-punk originals that drew from influences buried somewhere deep in our collective rock and roll unconscious.
It was probably about 11 when The Black Lips, also from Atlanta, took the stage. From the early part of the set -- on songs like "Family Tree" and "Dirty Hands" -- the crowd heaved and slammed into one another. Beer and stage divers flew overhead.
Here, since it was Sunday night, is where I'll make a zombie analogy. If the crowd of moshers at, say, the Ceremony show a few months back were 28 Days Later "fast" zombies, then those at last night's Black Lips show were more the George Romero / Walking Dead "slow" variety. The action never stopped, and bodies continuously slammed into one another. But there were very few elbows thrown or hardcore-style windmills. The pit did encroach on the "sidelines" maybe a little more that it should have, but it wasn't anything we spectator-types couldn't handle.
The rest of the show was fantastic and devoid of any of the wild stage antics that characterized the early part of the band's career. The quartet even flashed a bit of Southern politeness, asking, "Are y'all cold in here?" sharing drinks with the crowd, and continuously thanking everyone for coming out on a Sunday. The set featured favorites like "Bad Kids" along with several songs from the band's just-finished, and excellent-sounding, upcoming LP. The crowd's enthusiasm never let up.
Here are the photos I managed to get of The Black Lips' set, a great end to a great Sunday.
No comments :
Post a Comment