C'mon and The Get Down

WHO: C'mon, with The Get Down
WHERE: Amigo's
WHEN: June 28/07

The perfect counterbalance to the concert I saw earlier in the evening, C'mon played a fiery set with The Get Down out of Edmonton opening for them. (I missed The Split Lips)

The show made my face feel like I had a slight case of wind burn. When The Get Down played, I literally stepped up to the stage and felt the wall of sound daring me to come closer.

Good rock is not about musicianship. Okay, well musicianship elevates good rock to astronomical levels, but good rock, the decent kind that gets you revving, is about the loudness. Good rock is about stepping up to the wall of sound and daring it to break your eardrums. The rush comes from slowly tearing your eardrums to pieces as you bask in the guitar solo raining down on top of you.

And that was the first band I saw.

Before C'mon got to the stage there was a good buzz in the room full of rock fans waiting to watch C'mon's bass player Katie Lynn Campbell, who has also played with Nashville Pussy.

What happened when she got onstage – and the show kicked ass really, it was epic – was that she proceeded to rock, take something like eighteen shots, and display a smoldering chemistry with guitar player and singer Ian Blurton . Their partnership (they are together offstage too) was so captivating that I didn’t even hear the drumming until nearly the fifth or sixth song. Which is, in my opinion, the sign of an amazing drummer. You don’t know they are there until isolated on the stage, a deft –tap-tap-tap- on the high hat, as the wall of sound moves backwards for a few moments. All this good, pure but distorted noise came from only three people. They played into the crowd, literally climbing into it. At one point,Campbell played her bass guitar in the middle of the audience, writhing on a table while we all stared in awe of her. Then she handed her bass off to an audience member so she could go to the bathroom but leave the band playing, an admission that she knew everyone in this room could at least play the bass guitar. We’ve all tried to rock that hard and failed. But they respected us for that, and so we respected them. Especially when a crazed Blurton started smashing his guitar into his already-trashed amp. This band really plays their instruments, to the point where almost all their gear looks like it's spent time in a war zone.

Come’on deserves a much more rock sounding name. But, that indie-rock name (and inclusion on the Exclaim! summer sampler) got me to that show, and so whatever flag they have to fly under they should keep flying it. Because they rock. Hard.