Friday, February 1, 2008

1/31/08 - Druggist, Eaton Lake Tonics, Chris Holt

left a truly hapnin' scene at the fillmore pub in downtown plano (don't laugh!) to head down to club dada for some mid-week shenanigans.

joined by batman and the tim harrington groupie (scary, i know, but he behaved).

saw the last half of chris holt's set. he was accompanied by two of his buddies from his full band (eric neal and steve luthye), who played everything from violin to keys to bass to mandolin. heard mostly covers, but they were nice ones - led zep's going to california, and pink floyd's nobody home and comfortably numb. since the wall is prolly my favorite album of all time, i dug it. lots of talent on stage, no doubt. dug the addition of eric's vocals on many of the songs.

next up was eaton lake tonics. these guys play a nice collection of fairly straight-forward guitar -led indie pop songs. to be honest, their songs were kind of hit and miss for me - some songs connected, some didn't. liked the more down-tempo tunes - i think they work better with the lead's vocal abilities. dug the closer - 'i kicked the pieces out into the ocean' - at least i think that's what it was.

last was druggist, from san antonier, and these guys kicked some ass. three-man band, lead played both geetar and keys. nice pipes on lead. vocals on bass player were more talk-singy, but not annoyingly so - i actually liked it (i usually dont like that style). some nice anthemic radiohead-influenced stuff here and there, some jangly pop, some piano pop. great songs. totally dug it.

really appreciated the early start (8:00) - 'twas over around 11ish. really nice on a weeknight. ok, so no, i didnt take advantage of it (headed back to the fillmore, where they boys were still drinkin (lushes!)). but i could have, that's the point.