Review: December 4th 1998

When: Friday, December 4 1998. 7:30 P.M.

Where: Carleton Place Youth Centre

Who: Vegan potluck: Unarmed, The SwingSet, Underage Thinking, “Yes Sir I will”

I was sitting around perusing the zine and CD collection when the lights dimmed and a hush fell over the “crowd.” Suddenly there was harsh screaming and expletives from the corner of the room. A lamp was flicked on revealing a guy sitting in the corner, shirtless and shrunken. He proceeded into what I realized was the one man play, “Yes Sir I Will!” that had been on the bill. From what I thought was a political statement about freedom shifted into a examination of a crazed man’s perception of reality. The setting of the dimmed room gave my imagination room to run wild as he described his surroundings. A startling yet satisfying experience if I were S&E I’d have given this guy 2 thumbs up. After the guy had put his shirt back on and crawled out of the corner, the first band set up. “Underage Thinking”, a Carleton Place band who’s name changes more often than the seasons, I’d describe them as a mellower version of FacePlant. They played a few songs then when they had reached the last song, they encouraged everyone to sing along. Something which I found amusing since I could hardly understand a word, so instead I just danced.

Then Unarmed, a politically charged punk group, composed of the members from FacePlant. I always find these guys alot of fun. Even though I still can’t understand half of what they sing, they always manage to keep the crowd charged with energy, cracking jokes in between songs. At one point, the bassist(Brendan Flynn) started moshing into the crowd unaware to the fact that there was nobody behind him. He flew back into the crowd and landed on his butt. Unscathed, he proceeded to play the rest of the set on floor. Unfortunately their set was cut short due to the fact that a crowd-member got a little too zealous in his moshing and started attacking and pushing people to the ground. Unarmed, which has a no-violence policy, stopped in mid-song and told him to cut it out. Besides the fact that this jerk interrupted their set, I’d say this was one of their best shows.

Then came, what I’d describe as one of the best bands to have come out of Almonte, in the last year, The Swing Set. These guys were amazing as usual, playing some new ones and bring back old faves like ‘Tulsa’ and ‘Climb’. Even more high energy than Unarmed, I can’t believe it. Another unfortunate happening was the drumset, which apparently was pretty unstable. Which I only noticed since Terris, the drummer looked like he was half asleep. I had asked him after the set and he told me that he was struggling to keep it from falling apart. More amusing was vocals, Adam who fumbled during a song and had started out with one song (can’t remember which) and ended up with Tulsa.

All in all it was an excellent show, the food was great, the entertainment was excellent and I bought myself a CD punk comp, to end the night. In one word to describe the night: WOW!

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