Okay, I will call this the best concert nobody saw; or should I say, the best concert no one but the performers, their friends, and the staff of Cummel’s saw. Perhaps it is the lack of alcohol that scared people off, but hey, I got tanked before I came over.

The music did not start at 7:00 like advertised, so I made the rounds and I got to know some of the musicians. I first met Katie, from Karmella’s Game.

Katie is from Baltimore, likes to knit hats and purses, and also likes to rock out completely :

I cannot say how much Karmella’s Game utterly rocked. Katie and Mandy were a blur of correographed riot grrl action, plus they had incredible voices that harmonized perfectly over the thumping bass and rythym of the bassist and drummer, who worked together flawlessly to provide a room shaking beat that begs to be moshed too… though there wasn’t any room for moshing.

Even though I probably shouldn’t, I’ll still go on about Katie. Her cordination and just sheer rockitude was just spetacular. Here is her “station” she manned:

While playing all four of these keyboards she also stomped, lept, gave signals to her band mates, shook her hair back and forth in unison with Mandy, and in general was very awesome. Class act all the way. If you want to hear a sample of what they sound like, check out their MySpace link.

I also met Christopher Mast:

He is a real cool cat who actually used to live in an apartment I used to live in across the street from Cherry Street in Galesburg. His singing was actually really good, which is why it sucked he was last in the playing queue.

Unfortunately I forgot to check how much power my camera had before I came over, so I realy only have a few pictures of the four hours of rock. Thankfully, Christopher had a fully powered camera and he’s going to let me use some of the pictures he took, so then I’ll be better able to show the various artists, like the very awesome The Complete Strategist, who are touring with Karmella’s Game. Here is a picture of Katie, Mandy, and also two guys from The Complete Strategist whose names I unfortunately forgot.

I will write more here once I get some of those images, but in the end I really think it is a shame people missed Friday night at Cummel’s and I’m very glad I got to check it out.

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