Submitted by Dangerous Dan:

7 Year Bitch finished off the Gato Negro tour playing before a packed house in Portland at a small club called EJ's. It was the first time they've played here in town in quite a while and the first time they've played at this particular venue (which used to be a strip bar of all things!). It was fun to see them again without having to drive all the way to Seattle to do so.

The opening bands were a mixed lot. The first band was called Pisswild Horses and featured the singer and bassist from old-time Portland punk heroes Poison Idea. Jerry A. seems to have mellowed with age and now sings a good majority of the time rather than merely scream like he used to with PI. This proved to be a welcome relief from what I had expected. They played a short but fun set of catchy punk tunes that, much to my suprise, I enjoyed quite a bit.

The next two openers proved to be quite monotonous. Apt. 3G is a local Portland band which I had never had the opportunity to see before. Based on this performance, I won't be in a rush to see them again anytime soon. Plenty of unintelligible screaming over a backing of uncatchy hooks.

Steel Wool is a band which I first saw a couple of years ago and had remembered liking. Consequently, I had been excited to see them listed on the bill thinking the other openers would be pretty lame. My memory must be fading because this time they were nothing like what I remembered them as from before. More uncatchy hooks and unmemorable vocals.

Finally it was 7 Year Bitch's turn. From talking with the guy selling their merchandise, I knew Liz was sick and that they were all very tired after being on the road for a couple of months, but 7YB still managed to perform an energized although somewhat short set. They started off with Lorna and played everthing off Gato Negro except for Disillusion and Sore Subject. It's Too Late and M.I.A. were also thrown in for good measure before they closed with The Scratch. They did not perform an encore.

The stage was quite small with no barrier and only about six inches high which proved to be a bit of a problem several times throughout their set. Because of the large crowd, more than once the first three or four rows of people fell on stage because of all the moshing that was going on. Not wanting to have people knock her over, this left little room for Selene to move around on stage although she seemed to like having people right in her face as long as they didn't try to grab her or push her. A few people eventually tried stage diving during which one guy ran straight into Roisin and ended up disconnecting her guitar. I thought Selene was going to kill the guy with the glare she gave him but he was back off stage before she got over to Roisin's side of the stage. It looked like possibly they were going to walk off after that but some people from the club started acting as bouncers and things calmed down for the remainder of the set.

All in all it was another great show and I'm looking forward to seeing them play Portland again soon!