Last Saturday the gal and I went to the sold out M. Ward show at Warsaw in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Great stuff. He has a voice like a field of green tobacco. Rating: A-. The minus is because I totally thought that was a steel guitar at the front of the stage, but when he finally played it—for one song, I believe—it was just an electric keyboard. How can you dash a man’s hopes like that? Update: I forgot to mention there was a woman playing drums. Chicks who play drums are automatically enshrined on my list of “Rock and Roll Crushes I’ve Had Since I Stopped Believing in Girl Cooties.”
The opening band, Pagoda, was a gigantic waste of ear cilia. Who saddled M. Ward with that crap? First, if your bassist is wearing a polo shirt, you don’t rock. Second, you can’t rock out on the FIRST song, dipshits. You’ve got to build to it. Earn it. Third, put away the Led Zeppelin box set. I can just hear them now, stoned with their feet up on a plywood and milk crate coffee table, “Dude. Check this out. Stole it from my brother’s Camaro. Nobody’s ever heard of ’em, but you’re never gonna believe how good this Led band is. We could use, like, half this stuff.” Fourth, people were destroying their gear on stage about ten minutes after electricity and guitars got together to make one delicious treat. So played. And don’t think we all didn’t notice how you destroyed the guitar case and not the guitar. Rating: F, for “Fucking retards.”
