My First Lansing Rock Show

My ears hadn't rung since I'd moved to greater Lansing. So I was quite ready to catch The Flatliners at Mac's Bar Saturday night. The band is a foursome of 21-year-olds (yeah, 21) who've added a little bit of reggae and a little bit of ska (minus horns) to up-tempo punk rock a la their label founder Fat Mike's band NoFX. (I interviewed Chris from the band for a piece that will run in The Reader later this week.) I've had a hard time getting into the band's new record, The Great Awake, but I like how they operate. They've got good heads on their shoulders (Chris even knows Mr. Show, though he was 11 when that show ended) and I'm sure they're doing well with younger punk fans.

Really, I was ready to see any kind of live music. I've been here for a month, and though I haven't delved deep enough into the "scene" to be able to say categorically that there isn't one, I won't let that stop me from saying that whatever it is, it's none too impressive. There are only a few original music venues in town, and none, like, say, O'Leaver's in Omaha, that focus solely on rock music. Diversity is a good thing, for sure. But I think it says something about the number of original live bands that there's no venues that, say, never do a dance night.

Instead, Lansing's scene seems to be where Omaha's (I'm told) was in the mid-'80s - heavy and content with its cover bands. In fact, to meet a friend at an Irish bar we actually had to pay a cover to see a cover band. That should never happen, much less for a band that played shitty versions of late-'90s rock hits.

Anyway, Mac's is apparently where good bands play when they play Lansing. And it's close to our house. As Angie and I drove up, I mentioned that we could walk home if we ever needed to. That proved prudent sooner than I thought.

The bar is not very large — probably 150 capacity, if that — and smoky as hell. As with most quality dive bars, the bathroom stalls feature great impromptu literature as well as the requisite poster of Johnny Cash flipping the bird. Mac's also has big-ass goblets of beer - $5 for PBR. My kind of place. The bartender, a friendly, lanky fellow named Clint with black spacers in his ears, said they had only had the goblets for about a week. Good timing.

Angie was actually working at the bar — registering people to vote for MoveOn.org — so I came early with her thinking I could chat up the band before the show and maybe get some quotes for this blog of mine. I was well into my first goblet before Angie reported that I had the wrong night — The Flatliners had played the night before. Bummer.

Still, the bands I saw coming into the bar seemed, at least asthetically, what I wanted to see (one was wearing a Nekromantix shirt), so I hung around. The first band was called Bert, and featured a little guy dressed like Fidel Castro on guitar, a heavy guy in sweat shorts on bass and a full-stack back row that included P.A. speakers and a beat machine standing in for a drummer. (I'd earlier overheard Fidel telling someone that it was a lot easier "not to have to deal with a real drummer.") Turns out, Bert was a "heavy sludge" band. Now, there's a lot I don't understand with the large and overly comprehensive genre of metal, but I found absolutely zero redeeming qualities in this band. Most of the songs featured two chords, a boring beat, and the occasional over-distorted thump of a bass note. Fidel's angry vocals focused on "bitches" that did him wrong and how he was going to "kick your ass" if you "fuck with" him. Neither of which I believed for a second.

What I enjoyed about Bert's set was that probably 10 people (maybe friends, who knows) stood in front and granted them slow head nods. If nothing else, that spoke to some in the scene's willingness to support even the shittiest of their bands. That, or it would have just been too painful to endure the already unintentionally comedic band playing to an empty floor. Either way, from my seat by Bert's merch table (they had great T-shirts), I thought that was cool.

Next up was Chapstik, a five-piece, riff-heavy, thrash/speed-metal band from Detroit featuring a fantastic female guitarist. This band redeemed the evening, ripping through probably 10 intricate, high-tempo songs and managing to put out a ton of energy without being cheesy. I enjoyed the hell out of them. They would be perfectly at home with Omaha/Lincoln bands like Bloodcow or the unfortunately defunct Axes to the Sky.

After their show, and using compliments as a pretence, I creeped up on four of the members who were hanging out by their van. The band's story is pretty interesting. It's been around since the mid-'90s, starting as a country punk band from San Antonio. None of the members I spoke to had played in it before 2001. Lead guitarist Leighton Mann was the sole survivor. Cycling through 23 members, Chapstick has put out three full-lengths during its sonic evolution and has toured extensively. A good example of a band surviving entirely on live shows and merch sales getting its message out through Myspace. It's not easy, but it happens.

The next band was a complete Misfits knock off (no masks for these guys) from Cleveland called Horror of 59. It was straight-up punk rock. Nothing unpredictable, but they put on a fun show. I even danced.

Death metal three-piece Superchrist closed the night, and while the crowd seemed to love them, I wasn't too into it. I finished my third goblet and we left. A cop parked immediately next to our car, we decided to take that reasonable walk home.