Crystal Skulls

Nearly a week ago now I went and saw the best show, without the shadow of a doubt, that I have ever seen. Crystal Skulls played at Ray's Golden Lion last Thursday night with Mu Meson and, if no one in the room had eyes or noses, I would have peed my pants I was so excited to be there.

Now I haven't always been a fan of Crystal Skulls. I was first introduced to them by Adam during one of our cool podcasts. They were unlike anything that I have ever heard before. Adam has described them as tight, clean, rock with a bit by Jazz. I really can't even begin to describe them. At first I didn't really care much about them. It wasn't until a few days later when Adam gave me a DVD full of music that I really started to notice how awesome they were. Once listening through their album on the DVD that Adam made for me I was in love.

Just having their album was enough to satisfy my love for them. Even though I hadn't paid for it or supported the band in any way at all, it was still an honor and privilege to possess their album. Luckily, The winds-of-supporting-the-band soon blew my way. I received a myspace message from the Mu Meson group, a local pop/ambient/experimental band that has a good following around here, telling me that they had an upcoming show in town with Crystal Skulls! I was totally excited. I still have no idea how I even gotten on their mailing list, but it's the best thing that I have never done.

I went and told anyone who had ever listened to any music that they should come to the show with me. After about a week, I got three people to come with me, Adam, Brandon and Chad. The message that I got from the Mu Meson mailing list said the show started at nine, but it was wrong and we all waited around for an hour until the show really started at ten. We met up with Raven there and then hung around the foose-ball table talking because we didn't have enough quarters to actually get a game started. Janelle and Brad showed up later and they joined our group. We had a mighty fine group.

Mu Meson took the stage a little after ten. They played a few cool songs and were good but their sound mix was so horrible that I couldn't appreciate them at all. There was a point in their show that the man running the sound board actually got up and left the console to stand at the front of the stage and take pictures. During one of the many songs the he was taking pictures off, one of the guys in the band whipped out some sort of woodwind instrument (the name escapes me now) and tried to play a solo into the mic. Too bad the guy was taking pictures of the solo instead of going back to the console and turning up the mic that he was playing into so that everyone could hear him. Everyone cheered and they got off the stage to make room for the real heroes of the night. The sound man returned to the console with his camera and played some crappy music.

Here's Crystal Skulls looking totally hatt.

Crystal Skulls took the stage and we're totally awesome! I saw them run through a bit of a sound check and appreciated the fact that they made the sound guy actually mix them and make them sound good. After the sound man did his job, he looked bitter. They jumped right into the first song off their album, "Airport Motels," and rocked out! The coolest thing about them was that they sounded just like they did on the album. Their rhythm was tight, their vocals were crisp and they were just downright hatt.

Everyone in the band looked like they were having a great time, especially the drummer. He would rock back and forth on his throne, shake his head around, flail his arms and let his tongue dangle out of his mouth without a care in the world. Someone later pointed out that the drummer had a pair of headphones on connected to an iPod. Before starting up different songs, he would take a second to dial up something on his iPod. I talked to him after the show and found out that the iPod had some percussion beats on it that he used to keep everything in their performance sounding tight. I bought their album and he signed it! I think we're friends now, but he lives in Seattle, I don't know his name and he might have been mocking me when he signed the album. BFF!

The cool dressed-up guy behind the guitarist.

The singer was friendly and engaging, the bassist moved a lot and the guitarist grooved. They were all awesome together. One guy in the front row of the audience was totally decked out in 80's or 90's clothes (who really cares between the two?) and was totally loved by the singer. The whole show the singer beckoned the guy to come up on stage and dance around. He finally came up on the last song and the crowd went crazy. He ran around the stage doing all sorts of crazy stuff. He would do this finger thing where he would point repeatedly at someone doing an awesome solo as if he was directing a plane landing right on top of them and he got behind the guitarist and pretended to play his guitar with him. He was silly.

After their last song everyone was totally disappointed and cheered for an encore. I had never seen an audience so pumped for a band before. We all must have cheered for them to come back for a full minute before the singer finally came back. He brought the drummer back with him and got us all clapping our hands to help get the beat down. He sang a few verses of a song I didn't know, thanked us for all our support and encouraged us to come to their next show coming up at 321 in September sometime.

That's me completely enjoying the show. You can still see the blood in my eyes and my poofey lip from the day on the river.

Basically, they were awesome. They were so awesome that I even changed the background of the site to their album art! Once I find out when they are coming back in town I'll write it here on the site and we can all go as a great big family, a great big family of people that think I'm hilarious. You do, don't you?

Until then, check out their site.

Crystal Skulls