Tuesday, Jan 28th 2003
Stork Club - Oakland, CA

Once again, we had the pleasure of playing with one of my favorite bands, Oh My God from Chicago. (see the previous review, where I blow sunshine up their asses for three or more paragraphs).

We got to the club, and Emmit was the booker guy who ran the night like a nightclub drill sergent. It was survival of the fittest as the quickest bands got the best spots on the bill. "Who wants to go first? ...ok, second?"

Who knew it would be this way?

Mark's no dummy. "We'll go third, I guess then," he quickly pipes up. And the poor other dude was left high and dry to figure out what just happened and how his band, who got to the club before anyone, had suddenly fallen into the last spot of the evening.

All's fair in love and booking.

Well there it is. Oh My God and Beautiful Engines snagged the middle two slots. For whatever that really means on a Tuesday night in Oakland. But actually, now that I think about it, there were a descent amount of folks there. Tait and Jean came all the way out....that was cool.

Oh My God went with a quirkier set that night. They pulled out some of the weirder sparcer stuff, and topped off the set with two new one's that didn't have words yet. They were these beautiful soundtracky epic tunes with so much raw emotion that you just would never expect coming from such a fierce trio.

The first band was the local group (instert name here). Emmit called them the "fat kids" in a very un-PC yet hysterical moment after their set. All in all they had an interesting set, interesting sound. Moments of Flaming Lips or Built to Spill going on, with tunes that take you on a bit of an emotional ride. The vocals were perhaps the weaker part of their sound, but their songwriting made up for it.

The last band (name) had the tough task of playing to an almost empty house. They said they were like the Cure. And yes indeed they had a synth brooding sound to them. I like their matching suits. Though I think the girl should've worn one too. I've been listening to a lot of Interpol lately. And they reminded me a bit of them. Sort of.

We played better than the night before. I think it helped that we got burgers and coffee before we went on. That's my favorite part of playing the Stork. That burger joint on the corner. Awesome! And now we know that the pizza place down the street serves a good cup-o-joe.

Thanks to Emmit for having us and running the place right. Thanks to Steve from Bitesize for doing sound.