the music cure

Went to Acid Bar couple Saturdays ago with Marina and we were totally blown away by 53A, the acoustic duo that was playing there. We were particularly awed by Sara, the female half of the duo, who has the most amazing voice, and is my age. Talk about intimidating.

The other half, Alvin has mad guitar skills too. They had a request for one of Sara's originals, which Alvin didn't know how to play, so during the guitar solo bit, Sara would tell him the chords in advance and he would just play. Gape.

(By the way, see Sara play my fave Radiohead song here.)

So anyways, that was a couple Saturdays ago. After being completely awed by them, Marina and I decided to go catch them again, so we found ourselves back at Acid last night. Only to realize, to our disappointment, 53A wasn't performing that night cos they were out sick.

And then, to our immense horror, the replacement duo started.

Let me just say we sat through five songs, then bolted, with Marina quite literally screaming as she ran out the door. I could totally get that reaction because they'd already destroyed Joan Osborne's "One of Us", Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" and really really REALLY decimated OneRepublic's "Apologize" and "Stop and Stare". (Although, honestly, "decimate" is just too mild a word to describe what they did.) They were just starting with Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" when Marina ran out screaming, because if there is one song that no one can destroy ever, it's got to be "Wonderful Tonight".

So anyway, there we found ourselves outside Orchard Emerald at midnight, completely miserable and in desperate need of some excellent music to offset the hideous past twenty minutes. Then, recalling that EIC played at Timbre2 on Saturdays, hastily made our way there.

But as we got nearer to Timbre2, it soon became clear that it wasn't EIC either. Yet another replacement band. Except this replacement band was good. Really good. The lead singer had this Alanis Morrisette style about her, and the guitarist's fingers were literally flying as he played out solos with effortless panache. The miraculous discovery of this new band was the perfect cure to take our minds off the crappy duo at Acid.

We even hung around after they finished to talk to the lead singer, who informed us that they're called Mind Tricks, and don't really have a fixed playing place as yet. (To which Marina and I were wondering, WHY??) But on the bright and happy side, they're playing at Timbre2 this coming Saturday too!

So. Guess where I'm gonna be come Saturday night? Winks.