Scary Kids Scaring Kids and Alaska Concerts

Pouyan from Scary Kids Scaring Kids and I

Friday night I attended a concert at Club Oasis, a bar near where I work and one that not so long ago was the spot of where my truck was broken into. Obviously I was going in not too excited about leaving my car parked there during the show, but I was generally excited about seeing the band playing that evening. Scary Kids Scaring Kids are a previously screamo band who turned into a more basic heavy rock outfit, and did it well as their sound transferred over to the new genre pretty well, or at least from what I've heard. This would be a second time I'd seen them, as I had seen them down in Tempe, Arizona when I went and saw Gatsby's American Dream (and Circa Survive and Bear vs. Shark) at a small venue named Neckbeard's. They were good the first time, but I ditched out after only two songs because I had been at the venue for what felt like an eternity and wanted to get out of there.

No less, the ticket for the show said the concert started at 9 pm but I called to be sure and found out the band was supposed to start at 10 pm. Get there at 9:40 and sit down with a drink (which I got from the ridiculously hot bartendress, the quality of Club O's bartending staff is inexplicably disproportionate to the overall quality of the establishment) to chat on the phone for a bit before the show started. While I sat there chatting mindlessly away on the phone (sorry Katie!) I noticed the keyboardist (whose name was Pouyan and was very cool) from Scary Kids come out of his hidey hole to start playing Guitar Hero 2 right next to where I was sitting. I of course got off the phone and chatted with him about their music and his ability to be amazing at Guitar Hero even without sound or any ability at the real guitar. Nothing too useful, until he announced that the show was not starting until 11:30. I was already bored...now I had an extra hour and a half to wait before it started! Strike one against the show.

So I went over to my sisters for a while to waste some time, and I get back around 11:20 so I could catch the opener and see how they were. The band playing before was Scary Kids was called Dekcuf (read it backwards to understand the quality of the band) and they were...to put it in a word...bad. They were not good. They were without goodness. In fact, I actually went upstairs to avoid listening to them. Yet everyone there seemed to totally dig them. Anyways, they could not end fast enough, and after 15 minutes or so, Scary Kids were beginning their set. Overall, the band was quite rocking, I very much enjoyed them. They loved their audience, they interacted extremely well with the crowd, and Pouyan was pretty much hysterical. They put on a great show and I really hope other bands that come up here can bring similar energy, because if they do, we're going to be some very lucky concert goers.

Pouyan from SKSK and my friend Drea

Now here comes the bad. When I say "audience" and "crowd," I don't mean that in the traditional sense. I mean that in the "there are 15 people watching this band and it is sad" type of way. Maybe because it was a 21+ show, I'm not sure, but the audience was just sad. Plus, most of the people that were there watching came for apparently the explicit purpose of beating each other up in stupid ways and continuously kicking me in the ankle. Thanks team! I cannot stand audiences at Alaska concerts. You either have the ridiculous people at Cursive in February who refused to follow the seating chart and stood at the front right in my view (after making sure to get a beautiful ticket as soon as they went on sale), or you have the silly people from Colin Hay who yelled random jokes to be "funny" but were actually just annoying, or you have the children from the Local H show who just were ridiculous AND hilariously young, which of course makes me feel even older than I already felt. You can't win. There is always some part of the audience that kills me. Maybe it is a me getting older and crankier thing, and less of a Alaska concert sucking thing, but I don't remember being so annoyed at the concerts I went to down in the states.

Scary Kids Scaring Kids giving it the ol' college try up there

The point is, regardless of how cranky I am, if you are going to get bands to come up here routinely, you are going to have to support these concerts. If a mid-major band comes up here, support them so they can spread the word to other bands about how great Alaska is. Get positive buzz coming from the bands so we can get things a little bit better up here when it comes to music. Sure we have Matisyahu, Portugal. The Man, and the White Stripes coming up here, which is awesome, but we shouldn't freak out whenever there is anything half way respectable coming up here. If we just treated every good concert with the respect they deserved the rest would just fall in line. I know I sound overly annoyed about the state of these concerts, but I really do love them. I am the same person who when he found out that the Cold War Kids were opening for the White Stripes on their upcoming tour literally began jumping up and down for joy. Of course 20 minutes later I found out they were not going to be and spiraled into a deep depression...but that is neither here nor there. I just wish people would share the passion I feel for music when they go to shows, as it is one of the more powerfully creative mediums of entertainment in my opinion and should be shown respect. There I go being cranky and old sounding again!