Greenhouse Lounge, Redstar, Future Vintage | The Crowbar 07.19.14

Last week I wrote a review of four remarkable performances that continued my amazing ride atop the crest of this magical musical wave. In Dow Jones and NASDAQ terms, I was continuing to hit new highs.

It was time for a market correction.

And it came Saturday night at the Crowbar (Ybor City). Since I’m butchering metaphors, this was one hit in four trips to the plate. In the majors, .250 isn’t so bad, but it’s not so good if you’ve been accustomed to reaching base on each at bat.

I’ll get to the hit later, because it was a home run.

I’m not a smoker. In fact, I really cannot stand that tobacco stench, so I do what I can to avoid smokers. Usually, the Crowbar isn’t too bad. Last night, however, there were many more smokers than usual, AND some of the ceiling fans weren’t working. It was an unpleasant situation. Makes me think twice about stand-alone bars (no food, smoking allowed). Out Number One.

Psalm 100 says: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Sadly, with DJ Redstar, it was just… noise. Loud noise. I enjoy DJs but prefer the deep house/trance stuff. I just didn’t get his mix. If my survey of the crowd was accurate, many of the people didn’t get it, either. Out Number Two.

I’ve been seeing Greenhouse Lounge since 2009. Back then, I recall that ‘lounge’ was a fitting part of the band name, along with trance-y, dance-y, mesmerizing music. Even as recently as Bear Creek in November, they threw down a great show.

I tried, really tried, to get into this more recent direction GHL has taken. Similar to the approach taken by ZOOGMA, most of their material is built on other artists’ songs with strong rocking accompaniment. First out of the gate, for instance, was Johnny Guitar Watson’s “Real Mother for Ya.” And that one was OK, but for me it never got better. They have every right to play what they want to play. I have every right to hear what I want to hear. We just did not mesh this night. I bailed after half an hour. Out Number Three.

But there was a glorious, crushing home run first! Future Vintage opened the show and ripped it UP from first note to last. As their hour-long set progressed, the club started to fill, and with each song it was difficult if not impossible to avoid the groove the trio was laying down. They kicked off with “Duke Meets the Booty,” then debuted a new tune, “Obliquity,” which sounded great. They pulled off a massively sick segue in the middle of “Body” – just flat-out nasty! So was “That Nasty Spot,” for that matter.

Matt Giancola, who sits in the keyboard cockpit, also strapped on a guitar for some added fun. Trevor McDannel was deep in the bass groove all night, and this was as good a show as I’ve seen from D Roc on drums (and I’ve seen 12 of ‘em!).

The market has now been corrected. I’m expecting a hit each time up, back on top of that wave. [With apologies to Tom Longstreth, my high school English teacher.]

Great to see Purple Bear, Bret, Mathew, and Anna. Sorry birthday boy Harry couldn’t make it. We missed you!

[The Future Vintage set is available for listening or download at: https://archive.org/details/futurevintage2014-07-19.flac16]