One Friday morning, while on my appointed library rounds, I commented to the young lady at the counter of Oak Grove, Missouri's library that I'd about exhausted their supply of good Christian music. She commented that a friend of hers is in a Christian band, so naturally, I had to find out more. I got the name, but had it misspelled in my head. I couldn't find it on the internet when I got home, but my library friend said they'd performed at the New Earth Coffeehouse in Kansas City. I hazarded a visit to their website to see if they had a history of bands and much to my surprise, the band, Abbington, was going to be playing Saturday next week! I made plans to attend.
I lined people up to go with me, and people had to cancel for numerous reasons. I didn't have to go alone, however, since my son (Nick) and his girlfriend said they really didn't have anything else going on that Saturday.
The evening's line-up featured four bands: In Thicket, Abbington, Martlet and The Autumn State. Apologies to all playing artists, but we HAD to leave early, due to the volume. We couldn't talk or even yell to each other, and our ears hurt. It was even too dark for our attempts at passing written messages.
We heard all of In Thicket, which was a harder, artsy band, but a bit on the emotional side for my taste. The mood of the music and what lyrics I could make out was darkish and depressing. I think the band could polish up quite nicely, but they need to vary their sound a bit. Their numbers sounded rather like one long song. My son said In Thicket's instrumentals sound somewhat like Fuel, Tonic, or Stone Temple Pilot's Purple album. On his notes, even he wrote, "Music way too LOUD!"
In Thicket finished and we enjoyed the break for our ears, even though the filler music was a bit too loud. We could, at least, yell at each other. Abbington came on stage, and began to play. Abbington had a bit better polish, but, again, the volume was too much for the vocals to come through. I sort of thought I could like their sounds, provided I could turn down the volume. After two songs, we left, but I bought an Abbington CD on the way out.
