Skarving Rocks, The Birds are Free and The Hellcats SleepSwing

Saturday November 19th at 2 Kolegas was the second of two 4 am nights which hasn’t happened in a long time. It was busy musically and for good reasons! Ruby headed over to D-22 for Shanghai’s Friend or Foe but yours truly was more intrigued by the prospects of seeing Free The Birds come out for an increasingly rare appearance…

It was freaking cold man.. one of the coldest days of the year so far but the Drive In was packed nicely. It’s becoming a habit nowadays whenever DH & The Hellcats come out to play.

Skarving got things started nicely with their uptempo SKA beats.. I’ve never been a fan of SKA but they are now one of the most fun bands in town. They just get a crowd jumping up and down in a contagious fashion. They’re adding new wrinkles now to their show with a few more reggae songs and also guest appearances by little Hai Xia who turns out has a pretty darn good voice especially on classic Chinese songs. Crowd ate it up and kept bugging here for more songs which was cooool. Good going guys, just a little more work on the Bob Marley covers. It looks like they were sporting yet another new bass player making it #3 this year if i’m not mistaken.

Free The Birds came up next and I’m not sure what to say about this one. The band was rusty and out of sync big time but they were still Free The Birds. The songs were good, the crowd loved it and there isn’t much more to say about it. Mao Mao is back on drums after a brief episode with Ubul and I really hope they can keep it up. When this band is on, very few can upstage them but that night at 2 Kolegas, they were their own worst enemy. What i did like is that they played more of the high energy songs and they actually looked like they were having fun being back up there together. Still, no matter how polarizing Helen’s presence is and how much of a show she puts on, it’s not gonna make up for forgetting parts of songs and what not. The rest of the band definitely needs to step it up a notch or two. All and all, considering how long it’s been since the last time they had played, it went much better than i expected. Let’s hope for more….

DH & The Hellcats were next much to the delight of the audience which by then filled 2 K to the brim. I must say this was one of my least favorite performances of theirs. I mean they’re professionals and put on a good show but it just didn’t feel genuine… understand what i mean? I’m sure by now, they can play a 50 song set of rockabilly while sleepwalking but saturday lacked feeling. Still, with the swing dancers on hand, a lot of liquid refreshments and a bunch of people having fun dancing, the party kept going til the wee hours of the morning including some good jamming with the good folks from Friend or Foe who came over after their gig at D-22.

By the way, if you’re there at 2K and the noodle lady is there, do yourself a favor and grab a bowl of Ningxia Yangrou Mian… they.are.awesome