Cicero’s Oct 15 Show Review

Oct 16, 2009 News
Written by: John

Four bands played the October 15th show at Cicero’s and it was by far one of the best shows Achalachia has ever had at Cicero’s.

The lineup started with mewXaq, pronounced muzak, you know, the elevator music. But they were anything but elevator music. MewXaq was a stripped down version of the full band BlueBeard, consisting of members Zack and Adam. With a folk sound but the power of modern rock, they reminded me of Beck. They were the perfect way to start a cold evening in St. Louis, with the ability to warm up the crowd and inspire the evening.

The Constellations, from Atlanta, GA, was the second band to rock the evening. With 8 members in the band, this cross between 70′s rock, the Gorillaz and Tom Waits, had such a full sound that when a song was over you were left with the feeling of ‘what just happened to me’. With phenomenal musical ability and the commanding vocals of Elijah Jones, The Constellations is going to be a band you’ll hear about in the future.

Next up was The Cruel Cuts, and by far was one of the most absurd (in a good way) bands I’ve ever seen. With a great sound and funny lyrics, without paying attention you would never know that the bass player has his bass strung upside-down, which he passed off to the singer to play for other songs who turned it right-side-up. The lead singer, who is phenomenal on the guitar, didn’t look like your stereotypical rock star, but once he and the band started playing you could see the drive and focus that they have. The Cruel Cuts were able to keep the music and the evening going strong for the last band of the night.

Achalachia, yup that’s us, closed the show. Normally we don’t like ‘Headlining’ shows, not that we have a choice, because usually it’s later in the evening and most of the people go home before we even start. But we drew a decent crowd ourselves and the quality of the bands kept everyone at Cicero’s, that by the time it was our turn the room seemed relatively full.

I’m going under the assumption that we sounded pretty good, no one left halfway through the show, people were standing and jumping off the stage, and ultimately seemed to be having a good time. From my perspective, from the backside of the speakers, the set sounded powerful. Members of The Constellations and The Cruel Cuts stayed to watch the show, and the singer of The Constellations was right up front adding a dynamic that every performer needs, energy.

All in all it was a great show. A few cymbals fell during the performance and somehow in the anarchy that was the set, band members fell as well. If you were one of the unfortunate people that missed the show, you can follow Achalachia on Twitter for a play by play of the show until Achalachia hits the stage (sorry, cant do 2 things at once). And for show updates follow us on Facebook and MySpace as well as subscribe to our RSS Feed for Shows and News on Achalachia.com.

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Tags: Cicero