Review by Joanna Trachtenberg

Ok everyone! First show of the year and it was a good one. Tijuana Panthers & The Garden were bringing some west coast love northeastward for a short joint tour. Opening up were local boys The Pits. The Pits consist of a couple of Idiot Genes and a Dirtnap or two. As I would have thought they played loud fast punk rock similar to their other bands. I even saw the other Idiot Genes in the crowd cheering them on. Not it was time for the So Cal boys to provide some heat on a very very cold winter’s night. I had seen The Garden a few months earlier supporting The Growlers. The Garden do not play any actual guitars on stage. The guitar they use is a bass for those deep throbbing riffs. You can call it Vada Vada because that’s what The Garden wants you to call it. I call it fun music to bounce to. They have this cool androgynous style to them. To be honest the first time I saw them I wasn’t sure that they were both male. They started with a block of fast punk thumpers. Then midway into their set I saw Wyatt put down his bass and Fletcher get up from his drum throne. You know what time it is! RAP BREAK! The beats were turned on and the Shears Bros started jumping and flailing around the stage as they delivered their sick rhymes. At one point one of them tried hanging from the pipes. Okay now it was back to rawking which they did with a bunch more loud fast thumpers. Here’s their setlist (or at least what it said on their setlist. I don’t know for sure if they played all these songs.)

Express/27
Cells Stay Clean
Crystal Clear
Slice Em’
I’ll Stop By Tomorrow Night
Rainbow
*rap break*
Hologram
Jester’s Game
Everything Has A Face
I Want That Nose
Cloak
*end rap break*
Vexation
We Don’t Need Em’
New Song
Surprise
I’ll Be Right Here
Woman
This Can Build Us a Home
What We Are
You’re Down
Apple/Vada Vada
Grass

It was now the Tijuana Panthers’ turn to power up. TP did a great job at power punking. They remind me a lot of fellow garage poppers The Soft Pack & Jacuzzi Boys. I’d say that they are more garagey than The Garden and more about the straight forward rock. Not rap breaks from them. They played songs from their latest album such as Sooner or Later & Cherry Street. The best part was when they played “Fired” because I requested it before the show. They even thanked me for the request and gave me a shout out. At the end they did a two song encore (their first one on the tour as they said) It included an older track “Crew Cut” from back when they sported crew cuts. Their last song was a cover of The Buzzcocks’ Everybody’s Happy Nowadays. They covered it well. These guys are just genuine down to earth rock n rollers and that’s what I love about them.