A few weeks ago, I convinced a distant Wettner relative of mine to go see Bang Camaro at a small club in San Francisco.  For those not familiar with Bang Camaro, you should be ashamed of yourselves, as we have covered them at least 3 times on this site.  Bang Camaro is a fantastic 80's-metal-inspired band from Boston whose songs are composed entirely of guitar solos and choruses.  They have been featured in both the Guitar Hero series and the Rock Band series.  Oh yeah, they also have 15 lead singers.

On a quiet Sunday evening in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, we found ourselves at Bottom of the Hill, a very small club that you'd easily miss if it weren't for the huge neon sign out front.  Once inside, I realized that this place was small, like really small.  How small?  Imagine taking a 3-bedroom apartment, knocking down all the walls, and turning one of the rooms into a stage.  Yeah, small.  This actually proved to be very nice as the crowd was a bit on the small side and it was trivial to get within cock-groping distance of the band.  I'm not sure if the crowd was small because it was a Sunday or because there is a general lack of Bang Camaro appreciation in the area.  To put it in perspective (and by this I mean "exaggerate"), there was probably a 50-50 split between band members and fans.

After two decent opening acts (which I don't have the time or energy to review), the band (11 members on this particular night) made its way on stage, greeted the crowd, brought everyone in close, and kicked things off with "Out On The Streets":



See the tall, gangly guy in the front row with the really long alien arms?  He was spazzing and freaking out all night.  He also had this totally fantastic move where he turned his hands into a fluttering, guitar-playing bird. You'll see more of him later.  Oh, what the hell, here's more of him now:



Bang Camaro definitely has an interesting stage presence: the three guitarists were in front all night, with the choir behind them, with the drummer behind them.  The guitarists were steady and stoic all night long, blasting out carefully crafted solos and headbangin' riffs, while the singers thrashed around and rocked out like the world was coming to an end.  This was pretty typical of the entire evening:





The setlist was mostly material from their self-titled debut album, including their big single (and my favorite), "Push Push (Lady Lightning)". They also played my second favorite track, "Bang Camaro".  That's right, the band Bang Camaro has an album named Bang Camaro which contains a song titled "Bang Camaro".  Can you guess what two words comprise all the lyrics of the song?  Bryn Bennett (guitarist and one of the founders of the band) was practically on top of me:



They also played two or three songs from their upcoming album.  I can't remember what they were named or what they sounded like, but they were pretty standard (i.e. rockin') Bang Camaro tunes.  I managed to grab a short portion of one of them:



The energy from the band was spectacular all night long, even considering the small crowd and the fact that it was a lazy Sunday night.  It was pretty obvious that they absolutely live for this; let's be real here, if you were in Bang Camaro, wouldn't you do the same?  Even the "choir boys" were having a blast.  What's better than getting paid to rock out on stage and sing stadium-esque rock anthems?  By the way, this guy was totally awesome and definitely my favorite:



I can't figure out his name from the band's website, but it wouldn't matter anyway because I'd like to give him a new name.  How about... Joey Epsilon.  Yeah, that rocks!

With three guitarists and seven vocalists, I honestly didn't even see the drummer the entire night until the choir left the stage during (the instrumental) "Rock Of Mages":



Afterwards the choir came back on stage for the encore, at which point Joey Epsilon got into the crowd with a mic, prepared to lead everyone in a rousing rendition of "Nightlife Commando":





Finally, it was time to sign off.  After their set, most of the band members went about their individual tasks - some helped with packing the gear, some sold merchandise, and some (including Joey Epsilon) went straight to the bar.  Had it been a Friday or Saturday (or even Thursday) night, I would have definitely stayed and gotten smashed with them, but the thought of having a "case of the Mondays" was too much for me to stay more than a few minutes after the show ended.

All in all, it was one fucking hell of a time.  The band sounded great, the crowd was into it, and the sight of 11 grown men thrashing around on a tiny stage was worth the price of admission (which was ridiculously cheap anyway at $12 a head).  It was the type of night that really made you appreciate small-time indie rock and how that, a lot of the time, it's so much better than what you're going to hear on the radio or see on TV.  Long live Bang Camaro!

For more info about Bang Camaro, check out these other posts:

http://blogsnroses.com/2007/12/05/introducing-bang-camaro.aspx
http://blogsnroses.com/2008/06/24/bang-camaro—the-interview.aspx
http://blogsnroses.com/2008/08/07/sing-with-bang-camaro.aspx