Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Spin Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th, Part Two 4/20/09 [Updated]
Posted by The Spin on Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:38 AM
As with the first round of the Road to Bonnaroo series, during which The Features reportedly won their trip to Manchester by the narrowest of margins, this Monday's second installment was a virtual toss-up at night's end, as people wandered around the floor of Mercy Lounge and bumping into each other. "Who'd you vote for?" people kept asking, with sort of half-worried looks on their faces. We like to keep that kind of thing to ourselves, but all the public displays of indecision were entertaining.
Most everyone we asked named one of the last three bands to play: AutoVaughn, How I Became the Bomb or The Protomen. The increasing shit-facedness of all involved might have influenced the voting, but that's just a theory, and a shit-faced theory at that. The fact that The Protomen destroyed a guitar and then took turns autographing its splintered remains for a gaggle of giddy fans after the show ought to tell you that they closed things out in style. And we've never even played, uh, Mega Man Man 2.5 or whatever. Here's what we can remember of the rest of the night.
How I Became the Bomb did what they do, and it was good. A freshly repaired keytar enabled a "Secret Identity" finale, to which the crowd responded in kind. Things were getting pretty fuzzy by this point, though, and our heads were still ringing from AutoVaughn's set, which seemed like it would be somewhere between the jackhammer and the airplane taking off on one of those "this is how fucked your hearing is going to be" charts.
Pico vs. Island Trees kicked out the lascivious jams, and we're pretty sure all their songs were about how they wanted to get naked with naked girls and lie down without clothes like hot, hot monkeys. We couldn't tell what And the Relatives were singing about a lot of the time, though there was a kitchen sink in there, and probably everything else, too, 'cause that's what people usually mean when they mention a kitchen sink. Anyway, they rocked.
KS Rhoads was way slide-bluesier than we remembered, but we are awfully forgetful. (We should mention here that the place was packed, it felt like a Saturday night, and we couldn't tell if that was Erin McCarley onstage with Rhoads.) We missed a good chunk of Reno Bo's set, but what we could hear from the smoking section sounded patently inoffensive and a little bit rootsy, though we kinda hate the word "rootsy."
And finally, the first band. The bass player for Mike's Pawn Shop was wearing some sort of headset with antennae sticking out of it. (We hope he knows about the switch to digital that's happening in June.) The band was, uh, energetic, to say the least, and as someone near us put it, "If this was The Road to the Warped Tour, I'd vote for them."
Update: According to the Mercy Lounge website, The Protomen won "by a landslide." (But they didn't do any Fleetwood Mac covers.) In a three-way tie for second: How I Became the Bomb, Pico Vs. Island Trees & AutoVaughn. In a two-way tie for third: And the Relatives & Mike's Pawn Shop.
Comments (26)
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I have never seen Mercy Lounge packed like that on a Monday night. Fuck, I've only seen Mercy Lounge packed like that on occassional weekends. The balcony and back bar were just as crowded as the main floor. It was equal parts awesome (for the bar) and annoying (for me and my self-absorbed face).
Also, kudos to Davey P for kicking the jams.
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Yeah, awesome night. Can't say I agree with who's going to Bonnaroo but whatever. Great times!!!!!
the first band sounded like a poor-man's hoobastank. ks rhoads just wasnt happening for me.. any other monday night when the crowd isnt louder than the band they might do, but holy shit it was crowded last night.
3 way tie for second followed by a 2 way tie for third? That sounds like statistical hogwash.
I would like to add that And the Relatives were at their absolute best last night. They wear not giving a fuck rather well.
What a great crowd-- never seen it like that on a Monday. How cool that an event like that can bring out such a crowd. Shout out to Mike's Pawn Shop for originality!
@Mr76: Because I had to count all the ballots and judges votes between 2:30 & 4:00 AM and because the Protomen's victory was so large, I did not bother to compute the judges votes with the fan votes precisely. HIBTB, Pico & AutoVaughn were all within four votes of each other and all had the same number of judges votes, so I just left it as a tie. (To give you an idea, none of them had even half the number of fan or judge votes as the Protomen.) Mike's Pawn Shop had the fifth highest number of fan votes while ATR had a significantly large number of judge votes, which essentially put them both in third place according to my 4:00 AM drunken calculations.
SHIT WAS RIGGED.
Pretty awesome gimmick to get people out, though. I was pretty blown away by the turnout.
Congrats to the Protomen, although I think Dave "Mixxx" Paulson's DJ performance overshadowed all.
Funny how one of Drew's favorite bands won last night and he also was responsible for counting votes, admittedly drunk off his ass at 3am. Maybe for the next one, there should be more objective parties present for the vote tabulation. Landslide or not, at least try to be a little transparent with the whole process.
The first band Mikes Pawn Shop had my vote. I went home and masterbated to the lead singer.
What a spectacular night! Makes me proud to have moved to Nashville. Mikes Pawn Shop blew me away, even though they sounded like the needed to be playing for "The road to the AP tour". Autovaughn's new songs included the same old dynamics, but I loved the 3 part harmonies. The singer in HIBTB makes me fall in love! I voted for MPS, the protomen suck!
@Cool: Anyone who knows who my favorite bands are knows that while I absolutely love most of the bands that played last night, the Bomb would normally have been my first choice.
As far as transparency goes, this isn't a Minnesota Senate seat. For that matter, it's not even American Idol. Why do you think that the votes of 15 or so "judges" counts equally to that of 450 or so fans? Still, if you really do think that my integrity is in question, I still have the ballots. They're sitting next to my desk right now. I'd invite you by to count them yourself; but since you're anonymous post is less than transparent, I guess I can't.
Thanks for the breakdown, Drew. I don't think anyone SERIOUSLY questions your objectivity, but I do second the call for transparency. I asked several people last night, judges included, and no one seemed to know how the popular vote and judges' vote were combined to obtain the final result. Regardless, thanks for putting on a fantastic event!
Did you verify all of the email addresses?
Most of the Protomen email addresses were like weiner@buttface.HIV, ninjaboot@mooseknuckle.vag, etc. JK SLOL
i love it when nashville wannabe-scenesters whine about whose band is better. especially if it's in relation to a fun contest that sends the MOST DESERVING band to a prominent music festival. so far, the two winners have been bands from murfreesboro that have been very popular for several years. once these newer bands have paid their dues, then maybe we will vote to send them to bonnaroo. whether the voting is fair or not, it still makes perfect sense to me.
ps-- pico vs island trees is probably one of the biggest disappointments i've seen on the mercy stage. but that's just me.
I'm curious to hear more of these fake e-mail addresses, if they are all as funny as "weiner@buttface.HIV." Genuine, sincere LOLs.
Gah, I was so hoping to own "weiner@buttface.HIV." Shoulda jumped on that one, guess I'll have to settle for "BeefsackMcHamsteak@camel.toe."
gosh, now that you mention it, i did see some other email addresses like: rustytrombone@blumpkin.pis, turdburglin@buttpirate.cok, creed@nickelback.suk, bailoutrequests@obama.org, & cracksnackin@carpetmunc.her. these are just offthetopofmyhead@gmail.com
Dude I agree. Anyone that was there on Monday cannot disagree that the large majority of the crowd at Mercy was there for the Protomen. Hell they even signed autographs...I didn't see that happen with And the Relatives or HIBTB.
I actually thought that all of the bands were great as was the case on the first night when the Features won. Fact is both bands are highly deserving. The Protomen have a HUGE cult following. Anyone that wants to say they "suck"needs to back up that comment with some serious cheese. Act 2 or (the next record for those of you not cool enough to enjoy the Protomen) is gonna be FUCKING awesome.
Thank you. That will be all.
The Protomen do have a huge cult following. I don't think there's any question that they brought the most peeps in. For me it's a little too much of a novelty. I don't see them around in another 3 years unless they take of the goofy costumes.
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