An Unintentional Music Monday - Swervedriver

Coincidentally I went to a concert last Thursday and as it happens I am only writing about the show today, hence the unintentional Music Monday.

A couple of months ago I was perusing Time Out Magazine and saw that a band called Swervedriver was coming to NYC. They were going to be playing a show at the Bowery Ballroom and one at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. I got myself a ticket for the Brooklyn show. Small venue, cool band - good stuff.

Swervedriver is another one of those British bands that falls into the shoegazer genre. An amazing band from Oxford who were active in the 90's and that somehow I discovered randomly way back when. For those unfamiliar with the shoegazer genre, best I can say is that it is a sub genre of British alternative rock, with a psychedelic dreamy sound and some serious guitar distortion.

I made my way to Brooklyn at about 9:15 thinking by this time I had missed the opening bands, which would be my usual modus operandi. Apparently not - nope, nobody had played yet. So I checked out the venue, got myself a beer and made my way to floor and prime position in front of the stage. The opening bands, Longwave and The Still Out were actually good and I would recommend checking them out.

At about 11:30 we were finally ready to go, the hall was packed, I worked my way right up to the stage in front of the bass player proceeded to get blown away by Swervedriver, my personal favorite songs were 99th Dream, Never Lose That Feeling (was only sorry they didn't play Never Learn) and Duel.

Great show, good crowd and after the encore the bass player, Steve George shook my hand and gave me his pick. Rock on dude! Yeah!

Funny observation though - in all the shows I have been to over the years, never have I been to a venue where there was NO line for the women's restrooms and a line for the men's. I think I need to be going to more of these types of shows... ha ha ha.

As far as I'm concerned the best thing about NYC these days is that cool bands generally come here. So here's hoping more British bands start reuniting and/or head over to NYC. If Ride (were to reunite) and Sterophonics come to NYC I may just lose my mind completely.

PS Last time I'm taking pictures with my damn phone - I've had it, I'm bringing a camera from now on!

PPS A belated Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, especially my own!