Street Scene 2005 Review

Last night I attended Street Scene at the Q with my sister. We started the evening with a beer and dinner at Trophy's. It was a good thing that we drank two beers because those were the only beers that we would be drinking the whole night. We made the mistake of waiting to get our wrist bands and by then the lines for the wrist bands (which allow you entrance into the beer gardens) were so long that we weren't willing to wait one hour and possibly miss an entire act. On the positive side, we saved money and I didn't have to worry about driving home.

The first band we saw was Hot Hot Heat. I had heard a few of their songs on 91X and wanted to check them out. They played an energetic set, with a few slow (boring) songs thrown in. After that we made our way access the parking lot, which was quite and long walk that we made several times during the night (just ask my legs this morning!), and listened to Kasabian. I had never heard of them before (although I recognized one of their songs). They were the surprise band of the night. All their songs were good. Their singer obviously had some electronic effects added to his voice, but I kind of like that sound - reminds me of the bands of the 80s.

Flogging Molly is a must-see. When they start playing, people rush to the stage to join the always wild mosh pit. I describe their music as angry, intense Irish songs. They know how to energize the crowd, especially with their George Bush basing statement (leave politics off the stage, I say). After about 20 minutes we went to see Black Eyed Peas, who were either a no-show or started way late. Since they will be opening up for Gwen Stefani later this year, I will catch their act then (not that I am a really big fan). This allowed us more time with Flogging Molly before we ventured over to Garbage. Now I have all their albums, and love their music, but I does not translate well into a live show. Shirley Manson sounded remarkable as did her band, but they never got the crowd going, everybody just stood there listening.

The next set of shows were the headliners. We mistakenly missed most of Social Distortion's act while waiting for The White Stripes to play. After waiting for over 45 minutes, we listened to Social D, who were the loudest band there. They played one of their new songs, which was surprising good. Then we heard music coming from the next stage and rushed over to catch The White Stripes. With only two band members, their performance was not what I expected. After two songs we made our last stop to listen to a few songs by The Killers. Once again, I was not impressed. So we journeyed to the trolley to beat the rush and got back to the car rather quickly.

The good: more space, no pushing, quality bands.

The bad: no beer (due to long lines), late bands (due to traffic, I guess), fewer stages, less variety of music (no Zydeco, Ska, ...), younger crowd (I felt old).

Will I go next year? Probably not, unless they resolve issues mentioned above.