Concert Review: The Pink Spiders at the Record Bar, 10/01/08

The Pink Spiders

Better than: Watching baseball on TV.

By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE

Click bloody-finger photo for slide show.

“Why is nobody here???”

That’s the final thing I scrawled in my notebook last night. I wrote it, beer dripping down my head and chest at the end of the Pink Spiders’ set last night at the Record Bar.

It’s a question I ask myself a lot during sweet rock and roll moments in nearly empty clubs. This show was full of them – singer Matt Friction bleeding from a finger and dressing the wound with the set list; a random cover of the kids song “Baby Beluga”; and finally, guitarist and keyboard player Raf shooting a stream of beerspit right at me.

I guess it’s true that some of these moments, particularly the last, wouldn’t have happened if more people had shown up. In fact, had the bar been packed, my friend and I probably wouldn’t have gotten in. We almost missed the show as it was – somehow the band had failed to put this broke reporter on the guest list. We were about to head home when Raf heard what happened and took my word that I was legit. “Oh well. We don’t know anyone here, anyway,” he told the doorman, who gave us wristbands. Then Raf turned to us: “Let’s drink.”