This past Saturday I was lucky enough to catch Pinback at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH. I say lucky because according to Zach, one of the band's singers, the Baltimore show sucked! It was at Power Plant Live, skanky pants. The GRog SHop on teh other hand is an awesome venue, except for the totally unnecessary arctic winds blasting from the ceiling.

The sound could not have been better. FRom Mucus's review, it sounds like just about the same set. This time "Penelope" (a song about a poor little goldfish) was dead on. They rocked hard, and long. Again, barely any banter between songs. As for Rob CRowisms, there aren't too many weird sounds on the latest LP, Summer in Abaddon, but he did sing his face off for the whole set. At the end, there was no green room attached to the stage, no backstage area at all, so the band all went past us stage left for a pee break. Of course we all screamed for more like good little fanboyz and grrrls and they came back out for a long ass encore. I grabbed Rob by his shoulders and pleaded for my old favorite, "Manchuria." Pinback delivered. After the show, Rob was putting his gear away, talking to some kids. I found out that "Manchuria" was on the set list already for the encore so there ya go. Also found out about Physics, an old experimental project he used to be part of that apparently had 7 guitars playing the same chord for 20 minutes. AWesome. I was interested in that project, having never heard the material because The Zenith used to employ one of Physics' old synths onstage. Rob was real cool, he was the last one left onstage putting all his crap away since he was taking so much time to chat with his fans. Glad to meet those guys since I've been a fan since 1998.

Rating: 4