I ended up at Pete’s Monkey Bar (formerly Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey) Saturday night for a few drinks and some live music. I love going to Pete’s, it’s a very comfortable place and I feel at home there – good people, good atmosphere, and good music. I was a little hesitant to go Saturday because Pete’s doesn’t usually post who is playing, and I like to do my research on the bands ahead of time to make sure I’m going to enjoy them. I ended up going anyway, and wow, what an experience.
FaceMan was playing that night. Who (or what) is Faceman? FaceMan is a band with a very interesting gimmick: the singer/lead guy comes walking through the front door after the music has started wearing a silver/grey suit with a contraption on his shoulders which fashions a box around his head that has vents on all sides and spinning lights on top (which he turns on and off throughout the show). Needless to say, I was surprised by what I saw, and honestly, I was a little apprehensive of what was going to follow.
And so the show went on, silver-box-with-spinning-lights-over-some-guy’s-head and all. They also had a special guest, a harmonica player called Medicine who added serious depth to the music – who should always play with Faceman from here on out. Oh, and there were two projector screens near the ceiling, and a silver robot looking thing centered in front (something like you would find on Mystery Science Theater 3000)… with a light that kept changing colors (what I thought to be an eye), and a mouth with fiery-orange teeth… fun right? It was.
You see, the projectors played snippets of video along with the music (think Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz, but with different videos). And although the music and video weren’t in perfect synchronization, it was still pretty damn cool. Every now and then the video would become two eyes, and that’s when you could see it: two eyes, a nose and a mouth of a giant something (see below).
As the music went on and the videos kept changing, it began to make sense… this wasn’t about the band members; Faceman is about the music, the show, and the experience.
FaceMan, I have to hand it to you – you did a great job. Your music was surprisingly good and your gimmick worked very well with the crowd. I definitely look forward to seeing you again.
And Pete – thanks again for another great night. You guys are awesome.
Pete's Monkey Bar: http://www.petesmonkeybar.com/
Pete's on Facebook: www.facebook.com/petesmonkeybar
_
No comments:
Post a Comment