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The line is almost out the door, at 9:30! And when we get in, the place is packed for Ad Frank and The Fast Easy Women. They start the set off very slow and gentle, and proceed to build gradually, finishing with the brilliant duo of "U-Hauls and Ryders" and "The Ticket Was Non-Refundable." Kristen Barry is the keyboardist for the Women tonight, and also does backing vocals. Ad seems really happy and comfortable onstage, and there's no hint of changing anything about the set for the Rumble. A few songs are tightened up a bit for a 30 minute set, but Sean still dazzles with effects-heavy guitar a few times. The greatest strength, of course, is the high caliber of the songwriting. A wonderful set for a dense, adoring crowd.
Black Helicopter are next. They seem like an odd pick for the Rumble to me; their songs are uniformly excellent, but they're all mid-tempo rockers, and their stage presence is laconic at best. They're a great band, but a hard one to get excited about. The playing is all very good: the bass has phenomenal tone, just monstrously fat and powerful, and wonderful, driving rhythms, and the guitars alternate fascinating just-this-side-of-dissonant chords with some very cool less-is-more solos. They could easily play ten times as many notes in a solo and say half as much. I wish I could hear the vocals better.
Alas, I have no trouble hearing the vocalist for Stoic. He seems to be rather Disturbed about something. I know, I know, it's too easy to call them Nu Metal, but what else am I supposed to say? That's what they're doing. They're very good, but I hate it. But they are very good. The drummer is fast and powerful, the guitarist has a few interesting tricks (doled out sparingly), and the bassist plays intricate parts with a wide variety of tones and effects. He also does some backup screaming. The lead screamer, er, sorry, "singer," does a good job of connecting with their fans, and if I find the effect hateful and annoying, well, I wasn't with them anyway. Still, the trick where he exhorts them to cheer and then repeats himself louder for a bigger cheer ("Who came here to party with Stoic tonight? Who came here to party with Stoic tonight?!?") gets really fucking old the fifth or sixth time he does it. For their last song, he makes a little speech about family and community in "the Boston heavy music scene" and then drags about a dozen of their serious fans onstage to scream along. I'm sure if I liked them I'd think this was cool.
After that, it's a relief that Roxie look like such nice boys. And they play nice music, too; pretty, melodic power-pop, with short, relatively engaging guitar solos and simple rhythm. The lead vocals are a little shaky at times, landing just a bit off-pitch and just staying there, but at other times he does some very impressive things with his voice. There's also a bit of keyboard on several songs. It's all kind of lightweight and inoffensive, which makes a pleasant change but isn't likely to do well with the judges. I hope they'll at least go for songwriting over radio-readiness (and, to be fair, effectiveness within a rather well-defined genre), but alas, Stoic is named the night's winner. Things aren't shaping up all that well for the semi-finals so far.
