Well, my original plans was to have a nice rest and perhaps play some Left4Dead but Anika convinced me to go see Joy Formidable play at Wales uber Alles at Lexington. Though I was tired from all that gigging, I secretly wanted to go just to keep the gigging streak going (more on that at some point).
There were 6 bands playing for the night, it’s going to be pretty long winded writing all the bands and how they were so I’ll only mentioned the ones that I enjoyed the most.
Silver Gospel Runner were the first band to show up, I managed to catch them do a bit of soundchecking and the sound man made them do a whole song to check if everything is ok. I told Anika how you can’t ever go wrong with twee bands and discussed the idea of having a calculator to measure how cool a band is based on their instruments used and whatnot. They had trumpets, woodblocks, glocks and the almight triangle. Check them out on myspace if you’re interested.
Frederick Stanely Star were quite a fun band too, we instantly fell in love with one of the band members who wore bowling shoes, had a cool tache, huge glasses and a squeeky voice. They used a host of whacky instruments including double basses, walkie talkies, melodicas, uke and my personal favourite, drumming on a band member’s head (wearing a helmet mind). We were slightly worried about the whole head drumming thing but the drummer kissed her in the end and everything was all good. Listen to their stuff on space of the my variety.
The Joy Formidable were quite an act, Ritzy the singer had an epic pedal board that was about a meter long crammed with pedals (and an extra chorus pedal in front because there wasn’t room in the board).
Anika complained that she was wearing the same dress at Pure Groove (and her myspace profile pic has her in that dress too) but it was the first time for me so I’m good. Ritzy had really bright hair which no doubt looks good in photos 
There were quite a few drunken people behind us shouting “WALES” from time to time which was fun. The drumming was epic (especially when the bassist joined in) and the guitars were punchy and filled with energy. The crowd was certainly pleased when they played. I have a video somewhere but you’ll have to wait until I upload the badboy before you can see it (got a backlog of videos still pending to upload).
They played Whirring and Cradle which was awesome. The show ended with some broken drumsticks and a guitar casually thrown around the place (well placed on the amp for feedback and whatnot, nothing too violent :P). They are supporting Howling Bells so go watch two cool bands in one, or check them out at 93 Feet East.
