O'death, Hillstomp, and The Theater Fire @ The Bottom of The Hill, San Francisco, 11/21/08

I'd only recently heard O'death for the first time, and before investigating Hillstomp and The Theater Fire on Myspace, I hadn't heard them at all.  Still, what I had heard from O'death was intriguing enough to send me northwards.  You've gotta love a band who crashes merrily along like some eighties european hardcore band, yet does it with acoustic guitar, banjo, and fiddle (not to mention ukelele).

What I heard on myspace painted Theater Fire as kind of bland, and Hillstomp as bluesy junkyard rock (sort of like Rube Waddell, really).

On stage, Theater Fire turned out to be pretty good.  They definitely have a Calexico vibe, with trumpets, banjo, and washboard (worn like a suit of armor) complementing the more typical instrumentation.  One of the band members even pulled a Moe!, running into the audience and playing an old keg and a chair for a few moments before hopping back on stage.  A couple of songs had that haunting, southwesty kind of feel, which inspired the Calexico comparison above.  The others were decent country/folk/indie fare. 

Hillstomp, up next, consisted of just two guys - one on percussion (the drum set seemed to be composed mainly of plastic buckets) and one on guitar.  They growled their way through a set full of blues covers and originals.  Both sang, although the guitarist handled the bulk of the singing.  Goddamn fine blues music.  Made me blue. 

O'death hit the stage running, with frenzied fiddle, electric bass, acoustic guitar, banjo, and a drummer who didn't stay in his seat much, and was periodically observed dropping bits of his drumset onto other bits of his drumset (okay, just the cymbals...).  The songs often started out slow, with the guitarist and banjo player both singing, and then ripped into the aforementioned frenzy.  The banjo went away midset, to be temporarily replaced by a ukelele, only to reappear later.  Hillstomp came up on stage for a song or two to... stomp and play washboards.   

For an encore they played a Pixies song.  Don't ask me which one. 

The O'death T-shirts at the merch table were really cool too, depicting a giant, frost-snorting Wendigo carrying off a hapless outdoorsman.  Nifty.

I'll definitely be seeing O'death again the next time they come to town.