Akron/Family, more like Stankron/Family

There I am, way in the back not caring.
After hearing heaps of great things about Akron/Family's live dynamic, and being quite the fan of their recorded work, I finally saw them in concert on Wednesday night at SF's Rickshaw Stop. And wowzers, what a stink fest. Not only the stink of marijuana and sweaty moustaches, but also the stink of a very self-indulgent band of psuedo-neo-hippies.

As if Phish's bratty little cousins stole their instruments and went nuts with tin whistles, drums, remedial melodies, and a seriously inflated sense of their own powers.

They were joined by SF upstarts The Dodos for the entirety of their 2 sets, which only muddled things further. It seems following the departure of their main vocalist and songwriter they're trying to put things back together (he up and joined a commune or something). But as evidenced last night, me thinks that he was the core of the band. For instance, they played 1 recognizable song off of their 3 LPs (albeit I did miss the 1st half of the 1st set so I could've missed out huge).

More than anything though, I was put off by their lame ass crowd prodding antics. Before even starting their 2nd set (after a 35min respite), they were calling out SF as being lame, "c'mon LA dances, even New York dances". I felt like I was at the Vans Warped tour or something. And now, thanks to the brain melting decibel of their monotonous grooves, my ears are still ringing 24 hours later.

Read another take on the concert.