The Otherside (The Rickshaw Stop, 11 May 2005)

The Otherside is a local band from San Francisco. As their bio says, they love darkness and fuzz, guitars with pedals and anthems with huge obvious endings. And in between all that are the words "red wine" somewhat inserted in every other sentence it seems like. Well, the description is pretty accurate. The guitars dominate much of their songs and that is a good thing.

The Otherside consists of Steve on vocals, another Steve on drums, Marc on bass and guitarist extraordinaire Daniel. Their sound takes a bit from the shoegaze era bands such as Ride and a little bit of rock n roll swagger from the likes of Oasis. Granted, that might not be the best description of them, but in my ears that's how they sound like. And I love both bands a lot! So, a band, a local one at that, that sounds like Ride and Oasis combined is a-ok in my book.

They come to Rickshaw Stop to open up for Single Frame, which I mistook for Simple Plan. Thus, when I came in, I thought that the place will be packed to the rafters. But it wasn't, which I prefer.

I don't know any of their songs. The last time I checked them out, they were called Smiler and they had a different lead singer. Now, the instruments remain the same, but the vocals are very, very different. Unlike Smiler's lead singer, Michael, who graced the stage as if he was Liam Gallagher's long lost sibling, Steve takes a much more low key approach. The vocals are minimal, but strong and the instruments predominate. Especially the guitars.

I picked up their EP to get a sense of the song titles before writing this review. As a preliminary matter, the sound at Rickshaw was absolutely amazing. Better than Bottom of the Hill for sure. Thus, this band sounded terrific.

They played, among others, "Hey You" which sounds very Ride and Steve's vocals sound a bit like Ian Curtis. Yes, again, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but that's my opinion. This was the stand out track for the evening. Very catchy guitar riffs, excellent vocals.

All the other songs, I have no clue what the titles were. Like "Hey You," the other songs follow the same formula: very catchy guitar riffs, excellent vocals.

You know you went to a good show when you are tapping your feet in a 3/4 rhythm despite not knowing the song. So, with that in mind, this was one of those shows. Definitely a must see if you are into this sort of genre of rock.

Beer Rating: 2.5 Beers