BAND REVIEW: Senseless Beatings

This is such a great band name because everyone loves to see a senseless beating every now and again. I had seen these guys before at SK Net Café a few months ago, but all of a sudden they’re a full band. That’s cool. While many bands I see are unremarkable, I remembered this band from last time because they have a flutist. This is the first local band I’ve seen that had a flute (unless you count the Winthrop University Wind Ensemble), and he’s pretty good, too. Early on in the set, they busted out with the “Ghostbusters” theme song, which was by-and-large very well done. As an opening band, they made a mistake playing it so early in the set, as some of the later bands’ fans trickling in later would have remarked on the cover and remembered the band later. Another song of theirs I recognized was the “Dolphins” song… Which, honestly, was better in the guitar-flute duo arrangement.. The original version boasted a cute simplicity, whereas adding too much “flair” to it took out the “overly-honest kindergartner” charm that the original acoustic version had. Kind of the way the Austin Powers movies were a cute spoof at the beginning, but became all gimmicky in the end. The full band actually added gusto to the rest of the performance, especially the bass player—he’s good. Keep him, but teach him some other between-song filler besides the Seinfeld theme song (or have someone tell stand-up style jokes between songs so the Seinfeld theme has some context). All in all a pretty good performance… which I would have been able to tell you all if you’d stuck around for the other bands’ performances.

--a.c--