Houston Calling

Houston Press Music Awards showcases

July 31st, 2007 · No Comments

I had a hard time figuring out which bands to see at this year’s Houston Press Music Awards showcase. As usual, some bands I thought should be nominated didn’t make the cut and many that did I have seen too many times to count. So I instead decided to check out a few bands I either had never seen before or that I haven’t seen play in a while.

Nothing goes exactly as planned, however, and I ended up seeing only a handful of bands after spending a couple of hours catching up with some friends and making some new ones at the Houston Press party at the Rice Hotel.

After the hot walk to Bayou Place from Main St., I caught Southern Backtones‘ exciting set at Rocbar. Having never been to Rocbar, I wasn’t sure what to expect — it was pretty much what I expected, from the rock star posters to the Metallica documentary (and later, Natural Born Killers) playing behind the band. As usual, the Backtones were top-notch and had the mid-sized crowd into their sound. As an added bonus, the band brought Pale frontman Calvin Stanley onstage during the band’s cover of Pulp’s “Common People” to trade off vocal duties with Backtones singer Hank Schyma. Definitely an impressive performance.

I stuck around Rocbar to catch hard rock act Glass Intrepid. Although it wasn’t my style of music, there is no denying that Glass Interpid are talented — their radio-friendly modern sound fits in well with today’s popular music. They vaguely reminded me of Kill Hannah, who I believe they have played with before. They definitely killed live and had a great crowd — the benefit of Rocbar’s crazy light show added to the overall mood. The highlight was their cover of “Maniac,” from the Flashdance soundtrack (Michael Sembello, anyone?)

I couldn’t pass up a chance to see The Dimes on the big Verizon Wireless Theater stage. While I saw a lot of shirts for Saliva (the band after The Dimes), there was no denying that The Dimes not only had a great time but put on a great show to a crowd that enjoyed it. Their music plays better in a small club environment but it was good to see the guys pull off the big stage performance.

Due to an early Monday morning meeting for work, I had to call it a night after The Dimes’ set. I would have loved to see what went on at the Press party later but I had to be responsible.

Tags: Music

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