Wednesday night M and I headed down to the Independent for Clues.  The Independent had just opened with Little Joy on Monday (M should be posting about this later) so we assumed that they owners were going to blow the top off the new venue with the first few shows.

The interwebs were billing Clues as the hot new project from Alden Penner (ex-Unicorns) and Brendan Reed (ex-Arcade Fire) .   The rest of the band was full of ex- band members  as well. Multi-instrumentalists Ben Borden (Les Automates de Maxime de la Rochefoucauld), Lisa Gamble (Gambletron, Evangelista, Hrsta) and Nick Scribner (Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble).

There live shows were supposed to be a theatrical production, with multiple drummers and unique instruments on stage.   During live performances we were supposed to be dazzled as bandmates share and trade off on their collection of instruments, to create awe-inspiring versions of experimental pop songs.

After reading all of this I was expecting way more than I got on Wednesday. I was expecting some real band nerds from this lot (or nerds in general when I saw that they had one of those OLPC laptops as part of their setup).  I was expecting Of Montreal/Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos type band nerds.   When they hit the stage with their MacGuyver duct taped instruments I assumed that maybe these band nerds could really rock out.  These bits of tape must be war wounds.  After the first few minutes the bubble burst.  The band wasn’t all that together and they weren’t rocking out at all.

Barely into their set, they broke a bass string.  Penner then asks the audience if anyone can restring the bass guitar.  REALLY?  M and I looked at each other.  Here we have a bunch of musicians that trade off instruments and not one can restring a bass guitar.  At that point in time Lisa heads off to restring it and the rest of the band just left Penner on the stage.  Could they not muddle through without the bass for a few minutes?  Maybe play that part on one of the keyboards?  Penner plays us a few solo songs while we wait.  When the bass made it back the stage we were graced with 2 or 3 more songs and then it was over.

Atleast the venue was decent.  The Independent was a pretty cool.  Small/intimate like the Parish.  The sound was decent (unlike Emo’s).  Drink prices were average.  I will be back but maybe I will put less faith in what the internet tells me.