Scamper, Rudds, and Campaign rumble on
WBCN Rock ’n Roll Rumble semifinals
At: Middle East, Friday and Saturday
Sometimes it's all in the luck of the draw. The lineups of the semifinals of this year's WBCN Rock 'n Roll Rumble, which took place Friday and Saturday at the Middle East, showcased one night of unpredictability and one of inevitability as eight bands fought for three slots at this weekend's finals.
Friday night went to AOR heartthrob popsters Scamper, while no-frills bar band the Rudds took the win on Saturday. As evidenced by synth theorists Campaign for Real Time nabbing the wild-card slot, Friday's competition was the more hard-won and unpredictable, with a slate that was more eclectic and, perhaps not coincidentally, stronger. Rumble host Shred confirmed that the voting from the five judges was all over the place, with three of the bands getting at least one first-place vote. The audience was divided as well, as the announcement of Scamper's victory was met with almost as much dissent as approval.
We're All Gonna Die started the semis off with slightly prog-flavored metal. Undeniably tight, the power trio wound its way through multi-part songs like a grungier Queens of the Stone Age. Scamper, on the other hand, sounded more like local rockers Waltham playing dress-up as the Click Five. With its tight harmony vocals, agreeably poppy material and the choreographed routine performed by bassist Brendan Clarke and guitarist Nate Rogers as Keith Michel sang the first verse of ''The Proof Is Altogether Too Late," Scamper could have been the band playing in a prom scene of an early-'80s teen film.
Appomattox followed with a tense ball of high-tension-wire guitar, chunks of discordance and shuddering rhythms. Campaign for Real Time seemed to put the lie to the current crop of new wave revivalists like the Bravery and She Wants Revenge. A riot of information on the small stage, the band was like post-grad electroclash, taking new wave's synth washes, danceable rhythms and mechanized guitar scratches and finding something new to concoct out of the ingredients.
Shred described the voting on Saturday as more decisive, and indeed, the winner seemed clearer and less debatable. As the most straightforward rock 'n' roll band of the semis, the Rudds distilled much of the best pre-punk rock of the 1970s, from Todd Rundgren to Elvin Bishop, into a spirited set. Despite the simplicity of their presentation, they had more of a sense of old-school showmanship, with leader John Powhida's simultaneously fey and sexually charged persona just outsize enough to celebrate the transformative power of rock.
With the twitchy energy of guitarists Matt Scott and Jon Day, Harris funneled a hint of a math rock sensibility into angular songs populated by jagged fragments of space. The band closed the evening with an ultimately futile last-minute assault on the Rudds' ascendancy, building drama with an audience-participation chant that continued even after the band left the stage and the house lights and music came back up.
Taxpayer's airy, anthemic guitars washed over the room while the rhythm section gave the music just enough sharpness to grab hold of. A cover of Cheap Trick's ''Surrender" didn't serve the band as well, with those same guitars dulling the song's edges. Eyes Like Knives had better luck with the Alan Parsons Project's ''Eye in the Sky," which worked well with a similar airiness, but the band's originals were less focused and vocalists Scott Toomey and Rebekka Takamizu seemed detached when they sang.
