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Monday, March 9, 2009

The Spin Annuals, Jessica Lea Mayfield at Exit/In 3/6/09

Posted by The Spin on Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 8:52 AM

click to enlarge Annuals030609ExitIn18.jpg
See slideshows for more photos: Annuals; Jessica Lea Mayfield. The Spin was disappointed that we were feeling under the weather last Friday, one of the first nice days of the year, mostly because we decided to be a grown-up about it and forgo drinking as we hit up Exit/In to see hard-touring and precocious North Carolina popsters Annuals. We walked in as opener What Laura Says were finishing up, so we had only one impression: harmonicas. Great timing! The spring-like warmth outside turned Exit/In into an uncomfortable sauna inside, and we were starting to feel the heat as next-up Jessica Lee Mayfield hit the stage. Playing this evening with Ghostfinger's Richie Kirkpatick, Mayfield had the standard country-pretty voice that sings standard sad-girl love songs that sound absolutely great after you've been drinking alone after a breakup, but are pretty much unbearable at any other time. OK, one beer. On and on and on she went, seemingly forever, but eventually the lolling, depression-heavy set was over and Annuals took the stage. The boy-boy-boy-boy-boy-girl lineup reminded us of the De Novo Dahl from several season ago, but less, you know, good. The drums were (literally) lighting up all over the place like the Blue Man group. The keyboards reminded us of Van Halen's "Right Now." The guitars, bizarrely, sounded like Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins. The vocals were so Thom Yorke-ified we could almost imagine the singer got his start in a Radiohead cover band. All of these elements were in the very first song. OK, one more beer. It seemed to us like a case of over-ambition: There were good (if emo-y) ideas everywhere that just needed scaling down a notch or 12. Really, two drummers? Knock it off, kids. The music had a generic kind of niceness about it and each seemed totally suitable to play over a climactic moment on One Tree Hill. The Spin asked a nearby friend if he was able to recall the melody of the previous song, and we were both unable to remember anything about the music we were listening to not 20 seconds ago. OK, one final beer. Even the crowd--college kids that had paid 10 whole recession dollars to see these earnest young ones didn't seem to feel it much. Outside of a couple of girls that bum-rushed the stage and swayed along to every song, the rest of the kids gently nodded their heads and carried on their conversations. When asked by the band if they were having a good time, the crowd responded with an embarrassingly small smatter of applause. "That's not too bad," the elfin frontman replied, "but there's room for improvement." You said it kid, not us.

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once again, this blog is full of whining. whine, whine, whine

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Posted by Big Pinto on March 9, 2009 at 9:42 AM

you said it, big pinto. my grandmother's blog complains less than this.

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Posted by Anonymous on March 9, 2009 at 10:16 AM

anon is that a Jewish grandma joke?

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Posted by Wh on March 9, 2009 at 10:37 AM

Big Pinto/Anon (same person) is an anti-semite! Read the Terms of Use, dude. Jewish grandma jokes are off limits.

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Posted by d. patrick on March 9, 2009 at 10:46 AM

New entry to the Rage Against the Scene blog is now up on NashvilleRock.net! We take a long look at "the spin" this week:
http://www.nashvillerock.net/RageAgainstTheSceneBlog/tabid/646/EntryID/10/Default.aspx

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Posted by Enraged on March 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM

"For all of you reading this, I’m going to be randomly flashing people on 2nd Avenue while doing the hokey-pokey and performing Riverdance on the heads of small children this weekend. Surely, you must join me!"
That's a little piece of genius, Chris. Just so ya know.

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Posted by Bawston Sean on March 9, 2009 at 11:57 AM

It's very unfortunate that you wrote Jessica Lea Mayfield off so quickly and simply. That was the fucking show right there. In this case, less was much, much more and she blew The Annuals out of the water. I watched The Annuals for about ten minutes but left soon after that - I'd already got my money's worth.

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Posted by Anonymous on March 9, 2009 at 1:39 PM

all i'm saying is that a blog should have insightful comments from a unique perspective. this dude just whines about his night out on the town. "my beer was warm, it was too loud, my weenie hurts" etc etc.

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Posted by big pinto on March 9, 2009 at 4:38 PM

This "dude" has no weenie to whine about... cuz the dude is a chick. Just sayin'....

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Posted by Steve on March 9, 2009 at 4:51 PM

"all i'm saying is that a blog should have insightful comments from a unique perspective"
Have you seen the rest of the internet?

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Posted by Bawston Sean on March 9, 2009 at 5:19 PM

I have to say, every time I see that dude out on the town doin' his thing, he DOES just whine all the time. "Oh I showed up late because I had to stop and get cigarettes, I can't find my friends, these drinks cost too much, there are too many opening bands, I missed the band I wanted to see, this music is trite & derivative, it's too hot, now it's too cold, waah waah waah." I know for a FACT that Montmorency Jefferson Spin III gets paid VERY generously to write those pieces, so why isn't he ever happy? That's why I say to him all the time, but then the next day he'll just write something like "our companion was also suitably unimpressed by the group's unfocused noodling." Dammit Spin, you're such a creep!

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Posted by Emily H. on March 12, 2009 at 12:30 AM

(that's *what* I say to him, not "why")

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Posted by Emily H. on March 12, 2009 at 12:38 AM
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