Detroit’s Gorevette opened the night with a set of bouncy, sneering rock. The quartet is one of a few crews that can conjure up old rock n' roll idioms and girl group melodies while shoving them down your throat coated with a seething punk veneer. Guitarist Amy Gore, who many might know from the Gore Gore Girls, is a natural at strangling huge rock tones out of her axe as well as laying some absolutely seething leads. The other part Gorevette's namesake, singer Nikki Corvette, was wailing beautifully all set.
The spunky Tennessee garage rock band Cheap Time followed. The speedy trio seemed to aping the same noisy power pop similar to what guys like Jay Reatard used to do– it is no coincide that they toured extensively with the deceased bandleader a few years ago. Fast changing guitars chords, skittering vocals and a really bouncy, pulsating feel.
Now, Guitar Wolf never fails to turn any stage into a mess of anarchic rock fury and, signaled by the strident crack of a crash cymbal, the band jumped into it immediately. When they weren't whipping your eardrums with caterwauls of scratchy guitar and bass, the aptly named vocalist and guitarist Seiji would bellow deranged into his mic, orchestrating the chaos with four counts and finger snaps. Every now and then he’d just toss his guitar aside allowing sonorous feedback to soar. Throughout the set the band would bring fans onstage to build human pyramids or just to dance around. The frenzy never let up and, by the end of the night, the front of the stage was coated in a thick film of sweat and spit.
