They were playing at The Viper Room on Sunset Blvd, which is pretty historic rock & roll venue in the middle of Hollywood, kind of LA's version of the late CBGB. We got there around 9pm, right before the first band The Shakers took the stage. The place is smaller than I ever imagined, basically the size of a normal classroom, tiny, with a stage in the corner. It was super dark on the inside, and had no air conditioning (in Southern California in the middle of July) but all of that just added to it's character.
The Shakers started to play and turned out to be great. It was almost 10, at which point I started drinking like I was on a mission from god. PBRs in a seedy rock joint? Absolutely. Between bands, a drag queen named Coco (I shit you not) came up and started talking to my friend A.J. and myself. Dressed in a sort of goth-tutu sort of thing, tranny boots, a top hat, and a huge fold-up Japanese fan, she was a sight to behold. She looked a bit confused as to how she stumbled into The Viper Room, or who exactly she was there to see, but she was great to talk too. Plus, she kept fanning us as we talked to her, which was nice since the place was filling up and getting hotter. A good drag queen can come in handy if you play your cards right.
Then the second band, Ultra Violet Sound, took the stage. I decided to find my way to the bathroom, at which point I bumped right into my arch nemesis/guilty pleasure, the worlds biggest gossip blogger Perez Hilton. He smiled at me, and I opened my mouth to say something, but everything that was on it's way out was either too mean or too drunk, so I just pushed passed him instead.
When I got back from the bathroom, Semi Precious Weapons was about to take the stage, so we fought our way to the front and prepared ourselves. From the second they started their set, it was a non-stop, high energy, killer show. I was so impressed with their performance. Most bands like that who have such a 'look' to them usually are pretentious douche bags live because they're so into themselves and forget they're actually there to play music. Not these guys. They got the crowd in on every song, kept up the intensity the entire show, and at one point, even brought out bottles of champagne and showered the whole audience. I was front row, I was soaked.
We met them after the show and they were really great guys, which made the whole experience even cooler. We ended up talking to Perez for a while to, which made my skin crawl, but was still pretty funny. We ended up getting a picture with him too. When in Rome.
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