POISON SCOOTER

An Evening of Chamber Music, Sort Of

Tonight I took a chance. In the local rag a few weeks ago I saw an advertisement for a String Quartet appearing at the Imperial Theater here in Augusta, GA. Now normally I wouldn't pay attention to the words string quartet but the ad said this particular quartet hailing from Los Angeles plays Iron Maiden. Hmmm. Interesting.

I wouldn't consider myself necessarily a fan of classical music, but I don't abhor that style of music. And I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of a quartet, after all I do own every Elvis Costello album imaginable and in there somewhere is Old Mr. McManus performing with the Brodsky Quartet for a full length called the Juliet Letters. And I have been to many weddings, a forum where the music becomes background noise and is very easily forgotten as quickly as some forget their vows. But my point is, I know what a quartet is. Couple of violins, a viola and a cello. Right?

And I certainly have at least a passing knowledge of Iron Maiden. Curiosity led me to ask my lady friend out for a date and at the Imperial we did find ourselves this evening.

Not having done any real research on The Section Quartet prior to the show, I envisioned some head banger dudes who used to be band geeks back in high school toiling away at Judas Priest and Def Leppard interpretations. And I was okay with that, I was going for the spectacle no matter the execution. How misguided was I? Well, very quickly, as the band took the tiny stage I realized my foolishness as I set eyes on not one, but two very attractive females and a couple of guys who looked more like members of Yo La Tengo than Yo Yo Ma.

The group wasted no time with any preamble and churned out some Cream immediately catching my interest and making me rethink what I was about to see. Next up some Bowie, some Pink Floyd, The Clash, then a nice cluster of Radiohead covers from OK Computer and the Bends and the new song from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Whoa. Is this really happening? I was on the edge of my seat by the 3rd song and was fully engulfed in the magic of this quartet. Nudging my girlfriend, I was like a school kid constantly uttering the oft use phrase "this is awesome" and sounding every bit as retarded saying it. At the intermission all I could think about was how many of my friends would have enjoyed this and how sad it was to see a less than half full historic theater welcome this rare find to our crappy little town. Although we as a crowd were enthusiastic, I can't help but think the guys and gals on stage were somewhat disappointed by the turnout. Body count aside, I was fully engaged and so ready for a second half to this rousing, rock and roll orchestration.

Just when I thought I was as dazzled as I could be by 4 people playing modern rock hits on some fiddles, I was astonished when the second set started off with a string of songs geared directly towards my friend Joolie who utterly shunned the entire idea of this whole concept and opted to not bother joining us tonight. A Muse song, Grace by Jeff Buckley, Queens of the Stone Age, Iron Maiden...I was waiting only to hear a Mastodon song and I was gonna call that girl and yell at her for not coming.

In just under 90 total minutes of playing, The Section Quartet managed to make me completely sold. The free sticker I snatched up at the merch table (yes, a quartet with a merch table...PUNK ROCK.) is already affixed firmly to the bumper of my car. I can only hope that the record deal with Decca that the band was happy to announce tonight, leads to a more wide release of this material. But for now, I see they have some stuff on Itunes and I'm gonna grab me at least a Radiohead tune. I know I'm not doing the band justice with this review, my knowledge of classical nuances in music just isn't there so I rely on the cromagnon style of "me like", but trust me I had a blast.

posted by Scooter @ 8:31 PM