My wife Janet and I have a hobby of sorts, or maybe it’s more of a habit. We discover a show we want to attend and inevitably we make an overnight, dinner out, expensive trip out of it. It’s fun as hell and it ensures that I don’t make a long drive home late at night after a drink or two. I’m too old for that shit. On June 29th we took one of those trips. Here’s the full rundown:
1:00 PM
We hit the road from Culpeper, VA to Richmond, VA (affectionately known as RVA around here). We arrived around 3:00 at our destination, a historic place called The Linden Row Inn which is our go-to spot due to its relatively reasonable cost and its location within walking distance of three music venues that we frequent in RVA. Once we were checked in, we cracked a bottle of cava as we often do on these trips and relaxed until dinner.
4:45 PM
We took the two-block walk on Grace Street between from 1st and 3rd for a reservation at The Rappahannock Oyster Company. I resisted the urge to stop into the Vinyl Conflict Record store, which is amazing if you are ever in Richmond. I won’t dwell on dinner other than to share that I felt adventurous and had the grilled octopus. It was something I had never had. Basically, I got one single 8-inch long tentacle spiced and grilled to perfection. It tasted quite a bit like ham to me. Huh.
6:00 PM
We narrowly avoided a thunderstorm and made it to The Ember Music Hall, one block away, just in time for doors. We were seated at our reserved high-top table and informed that there would be a $35 minimum per person. Yikes, how many beers does that buy? (Hint: The answer is at least one too many.) The show was well attended. The club has about six or seven high top tables, a raised VIP lounge (for the VIP’s, not us) and plenty of standing room. We were at a prime spot directly in front of the stage, although there were people standing in front of us. Still, the view was great. All of the photos in this piece were taken by me from our table or standing beside it. There are surely better photos of these bands, but I want to share exactly what I saw. We were excited for the bill, with four different bands, all of which I have long had included - or at least represented - in my music library.
6:30 PM - THE LONELY ONES
I had discovered this band a couple of years ago and I like some of the singles they have released. They hit the stage at the announced time and the crowd was already decent, so I was happy for them. 6:30 pm is a pretty early start, after all. I was especially happy after they played their first song and not only was the song excellent, the sound was amazing. LOUD, crisp and clear. No fuzz, no drowning out the vocals in a wall of guitar. Janet and I also cracked a big smile when they announced that they were from Columbus, Ohio. Any of you Pencil Storm faithful know this band? They were very, very solid, straight-ahead rock. They played I think for about 40 minutes and we were off to a great start.
At this point I decided to go check out the merch tables. There was no Faster Pussycat vinyl and they were out of XL t-shirts, so I settled for asking the bouncer if it would be okay for me to rip down a show poster from the wall. He said to have at it so I did. It’s pictured above and has signatures from various members of all four bands that I collected throughout the night, which was fun.
7:25 - THE RUMOURS
This is a band made up of two front women (guitarist & bassist) and a male drummer. I enjoyed their first records from 2017 and 2020, but after that they went in a decidedly harsher direction. Still, I was pretty excited to see what they would have for us. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. These are two seemingly very angry women. (Let me back up a minute and relate something to you. During the Lonely Ones’ set, there was a woman standing near us wearing leopard-print shorts of the very tight and short variety with a bikini top. She was pretty and my wife suggested she was likely one of The Rumours. I thought she was just a throwback fan of Faster Pussycat. My wife was correct. Now back to the show.) The girls hit the stage, both dressed identically as described above, and while I did not hear what was said as they walked on stage, I can only guess that maybe some poor idiot told them to take their tops off or something. The two of them went into a five-minute long rage & rant about how he should grow up, have respect, get the #*%k out, etc. Ughh. This was all before the first song. Once that was over, they launched into a set of fairly non-melodic blistering punk and non-stop screaming. I was not impressed. The only song I could really decipher anything out of was a cover of “Speed Kills” by Agent Orange. That’s a great song, or at least it is when Agent Orange plays it. They were well-received and kind of a fun spectacle, but just not my cup of tea I guess. They’re from Iowa, just so you know. Having said all that, I did wander over and get the girls - or uh, women - to sign my poster. I will say that they were both very friendly and accommodating.
8:30 - THE SUPERSUCKERS
I am a long-time Supersuckers fan, but the last few times I’ve seen them they’ve been a little noisy and they don’t play their more melodic songs. It’s a bit too much of a wall of noise for me. This night continued that trend. Don’t get me wrong, they rock hard and I like it, but my favorite song by the band, and it’s not close, is “History of Rock n Roll” from their 2018 record Suck It! (Funny, I just realized that The Rumours 2020 record that I like is called Suck It.) Anyway, they did not play that song, and in fact I have only seen it live once in about five tries. They did include two favorites if mine, “Rock Your Ass” and “Pretty Fucked Up.” Other than that, it was set of hard-thrashing rock n roll that I thought could have been much better. The Rumours girls joined on stage for the last couple of songs to bop around, as pictured above. Slim Tender, Faster Pussycat bassist, was on stage helping out near the end as well.
At this point in the evening, we were certainly having a great time, but we were definitely ready to hear a bit more melody and a bunch of great songs we would recognize. Faster Pussycat was sure to be the tonic for what we were craving. They are definitely one of my all-time favorites.
9:45 - FASTER PUSSYCAT
Our evening’s headliners hit the stage and wasted no time launching into “Motorbike,” which is their newest single. They followed with “Don’t Change That Song” and “Cathouse” from their self-titled debut (1987) and then “Slip of the Tongue” from their second record, Wake Me When It’s Over (1989). The fifth song on the setlist was “Like a Ghost,” which is a single from 2023 and two songs later we got “NOLA” from 2021. I absolutely love those two songs and I am so happy that a band best known for its late-1980’s heyday is willing to play their new songs and that said songs are so good. I’ve seen too many older bands just going through the motions of playing the old stuff and completely ignoring excellent, more recent songs. I know they have to play what the people want to hear, but they should try to stay relevant as well. The fact that Faster Pussycat included three modern-era tunes in a 14-song set speaks well of them. Other highlights were “Poison Ivy,” “Bathroom Wall” and the set-ender “Babylon.” Band leader and vocalist Taime Downe sounded great and the band was tight. Eddie Spaghetti of The Supersuckers joined in on a song and The Rumours again took the stage to dance around at the end of the set.
The crowd was pleased to say the least. It was a good evening. And I will never complain about seeing a decent quadruple bill of bands and still being on my way home at 11:00.
JCE, or John to his friends, was born in the Nation’s Capital. He grew up in the VA suburbs of D.C. His earliest musical memories are tied to a transistor radio with a single earphone that he carried everywhere listening to AM radio. He is now retired which gives he and his wife of 34 years even more opportunities to travel far and wide to see good live rock n roll.