By Amber Shaffer, SDAM Staff Writer
©Copyright 2024 SDAM.com/Amber Shaffer

Thursday night saw Cane's sold out and packed to capacity with San Diego's indie rock crowd. And Kelly Osborne. She was there, as were all the boys in tight jeans and haircuts somewhere between the Beach Boys and The Beatles, to see Interpol , the latest buzz band to come out of New York. Although I had never heard anything by Interpol, in the past two months I'd read and heard a lot about them so I chose to brave the 16+ crowd to see if the truly deserved all the recent attention they'd been getting. This was also to be my first trip to Cane's, a venue I'd heard good things about. I arrived, I assume, about 1/3 of the way into The Warlocks' set. It wasn't quite 9:30 and the floor was already nearly full as was the small balcony, where I managed to finagle a spot so I could survey the scene. The Warlocks were about what anyone expects from an opening act – just alright. It's nice when you stumble across an opening act that exceeds your expectations, but tonight wasn't the case. They have the potential to be something unique just because of their set up: 3 guitars, 1 bass, a synth set up and 2 – yes that's 2 – drummers on full drum kits. But they didn't do anything with it. Because of my vantage point, it was very cool to watch the synchronized drumming, but because they were playing the exact same beats the whole time, not changing rhythm or playing different parts, it was very under-whelming. They weren't adding to the band's sound at all, just taking up more space on the stage. It wasn't even louder. Just interesting to watch. As I had walked through the club when I arrived, not really looking at the stage, I hadn't even realized there were 2 drummers; it wasn't until I got up top and looked down that I was aware. A quick description of the band's sound would be groove rock. Not something I like to go to concerts for, but I commend them for making an attempt to keep their songs under 8 minutes. The Warlocks are what you'd put on in a dimly lit room while you hit your bong like it was 1968. They even keep the stage dark, with just enough red or blue light periodically illuminating the stage for you to identify where the members are located. They fall very much into the shoegazer category of rock both in their style of music and the way they perform it. Lots of distortion masking their sound and vocals while they stared and their Chucks and made the world a groovy place to be. After their set, I wandered around the venue a bit more to familiarize myself with it. From the balcony you can go to an outside patio which I avoided because I was cold. Back downstairs (a poorly placed stair case – it drops down into the middle of the walkway at the back of the club, making it impossible to stand back there to watch the show), the stage is low – about waist high and there's probably room for 200 people on the floor space in front of it. There's more standing and sitting room all along the periphery of the room as well. If you're a grown-up, you can enter the Cantina which has a bar and a smoking patio, as well as half a dozen TV screens to watch the stage on. All in all, not a bad place and a good venue to see fairly well recognized and up and coming acts in a small setting. As I mentioned, the place was at capacity and as I walked around I felt like they packed in a few too many people. And now that I know about the fire tragedy at Great White's show in New Jersey the same night, I'm very uncomfortable with the number of people that were at Cane's that night (at print, nearly a 100 of the 200 attendees at the 300 capacity venue in NJ died because everyone tried to exit out the main door when pyro caught the club on fire). My one recommendation to people attending a show anywhere is to be aware of all your exit options. I had no idea what to expect when Interpol took the stage. My first impression was visual, of course. They look very sharp, each wearing a dark suit or a dark shirt w/ a tie, which reminded me a little bit of The Hives, except where The Hives are more 60s retro in appearance, Interpol is very much 80s. As for the performance, it was solid, I enjoyed the show a lot and will be picking up the CD soon (which came out six or so months ago for those who are curious and is their first full-length release; prior to that they had put out an EP). It's much easier for me to describe bands I don't like, rather than those I do, but if you want a feel for sound, the standard comparison is to Joy Division. Having never heard or Interpol before, I now understand why they sold out their two upcoming shows back in their home town of NYC in 12 minutes. My favorite part of the show was just watching them perform. Having just begun to learn how to play bass, I spend a significant portion of any show watching the bass player, wondering how long it will be before I can just play a complete song. Once I get that down, then I'll need to work on presence, which Interpol's bassist, Carlos, can teach me a thing or two about. It was like watching a really good dancer – I couldn't tear my eyes away. Except when I would get distracted by the guy on keyboards behind him. That guy was just funny. He was definitely in to what he was doing, but it's really hard to look intense without looking foolish when you're playing keyboard. I felt like I was watching Jack Black doing an impersonation of the guy from Flock of Seagulls. I heard through the grapevine that the keyboardist isn't a regular band member, just a touring member. The lead guitarist also captured some of my attention as well. I'm just going to say it – the guitarist and bassist are both just sexy when they play. The rock and roll cliche is true – put a guy up on stage with a guitar, and girls are going to be attracted to him. Lucky for the guys in Interpol, they don't just have the equipment, they have skill and they happen to be attractive too, in their individual ways. And they're all tiny, like a good rock star should be. After their encore, some girl from the front row climbed on stage and tried to kiss the bassist but was stopped by security before she could quite accomplish her goal. She was persistent though, reaching for him and trying to slip away from her captors. When the band had exited out the door off the stage and security had released her she tried go after them and was stopped again. All in all I think she tried about five times to get to her prize before she finally got off the stage. It was funny to watch, but I was a little embarrassed for her too. Then she got smart and realized if you go to the right of the stage, by the merch booth, that's basically the entrance to the backstage area and the band was hanging out there. I saw her talking to Carlos and interrupted them briefly to get a picture with my idol and pass along a card so he could read this fabulous review later. I was too tired to hang around and chat it up since I have to be at work at 7am, so I found my car at the back of Cane's free parking lot, cruised through Mission Beach and Pacific Beach all the time wondering what in the world people were doing out at this time of night. Then I realized it was only midnight and I was officially turning into an old fogey. To learn more about Interpol,visit their Web site.