Rocket from the Tombs!

Last nite I went to see Rocket from the Tombs and Cobra Verde at Abbey Pub. I had never been to the place before. It is smack dab in enemy teritory (near my old employer), and as I was driving through that neighborhood I found myself getting more and more angry.

Cobra Verde, as I understand it, has a memeber or two from Death of Samantha. After about two songs into their set, I had enough of them. Just uninspired boring rock. The singer kept mooching smokes from the crowd. It baffles me why someone who is on stage singing would want to be smoking while doing so, but whatever. They played for way too long and I ended up just watching the crowd looking to see if I knew anyone. I ended up seeing just one person I know, Aadam the taper, who I hadn’t seen in a few years so when the show was over I went to say hello.

Rocket from the Tombs played and they were amazing. The singer, Dave Thomas, is a very large man, I’m talking huge. Not Andre the Giant huge, but he is pretty fucking giant. He actually had a cane to help him move about, and he sat down a lot when he wasn’t singing. He also had papers with the lyrics on there, which was slightly amusing, but understandable seeing as they have not played these songs in almost 30 years. Age has not made these musicians lose a step, they were on top of their game and played an hour’s worth of their great material, some of which ended up being recorded as Dead Boys songs after RFTT had broken up, leaving no recorded output in their wake (until last year that is). The place was pretty full, and very smokey, I reeked of it when I got home, but it was worth the foul smokey air to see such a great, and most likely once-in-a-lifetime show. After the show, the band were shaking hands, signing shit, and selling t-shirts, cds and records. I picked up the new red vinyl pressing of the album for completion’s sake, and also for the fact they were selling it a good 12 bucks cheaper than you can buy it from anywhere else, including their label! I wish I had brought the camera to take some pix, but I did sit up in the balcony, so I don’t know how good they would have come out anyway.