The Let Down / Necro Hippies / Fisher Cat @ Allways Lounge

The cold has been keeping me indoors and away from shows, but I sucked it up and made the trip to New Orleans for this Books 2 Prisoners benefit show that Hope's band was playing.

The Let Down / Necro Hippies / Fisher Cat @ Allways Lounge
Degree of Awesomeness Index: 8.5/10

I'm a big fan of fun. And even after a long, bitterly cold night rife with deafening music and copious whiskey shots, I'm often willing to do the whole thing over again the next night. Such was the case this past weekend. We opened for Eyehategod on Friday night, and it seemed that everybody wanted to buy me a whiskey shot. 8am could not have come any quicker the next morning, but surprisingly my body aches were minimal. And so onward I trekked to the Marigny Theatre/Allways Lounge (formerly Cowpokes, for you NOLA-savvy show-goers) with the usual suspects and a flask of Evan Williams Green.

The night started off memorable enough, between one black-out drunk Hispanic man trying to hit on Hope but failing miserably before getting kicked out of the bar, and a more friendly nearly black-out drunk woman buying everyone in the bar shots of whiskey.

The show itself kicked off with Hope's band The Let Down. Obviously I'm a bit biased, but I have to say that I normally hate shit like this. As I've said before, folk punk is not my thing. Well, this band has awesomely New Orleans-centric lyrics and they balance out the usual acoustic guitar/singing combo with singing saw and banjo. I mean, you have to love songs about not having sex in certain bar bathrooms because you've got standards. Anyway, they were fun.

Next up was maybe my favorite band in New Orleans right now (which, yea I know, changes every month), Necro Hippies. Man, they are fucking punk to the bone. Snotty 80s-style hardcore, plenty of dancing around with beer flying everywhere. I had almost forgotten how fun punk shows can be until that night. In BR, it's rare that people really get into the music and dance around and have fun. And shit, it's actually pretty rare in NOLA too. But that night the planets aligned and all was right in the world. They closed with a cover...I think it was an SS Decontrol song? Every one was going nuts, from unshaved miscreant Thou roadie Derek Z, to nice collegiate-looking Uptowner couple Darin and Nathan Acosta. The crusties, the weirdos, and the hangers-on all locked arms that night.

The next band was Fisher Cat, who I've actually been meaning to see for a while now. The singer wrote this badass zine called Breakfast which you should all read. I really didn't know what to expect, and by this point in the night I was 2 glasses of wine and 2 Johnny Walker Black Labels deep, plus the joint was packed so it was hard to see. From what I could piece together, they fused spoken-word poetry, noise-rock, and hardcore into some creepy gelatinous blend. It was weird, but people were into it. They seem like the kind of band that I would put first on a bill just to freak out all the people that came to see the more "normal" headliner.

After they were done, Juvenile's "Back Dat Ass Up" came on and a dance party broke out. We called it a night after 3 songs because we're only so tough, you know.