Whether you know it or not, every once in a while you need to rock. That’s right, just like getting your teeth cleaned, your eyes checked, your pap smeared, or your colon scoped, it is essential that you occasionally attend a fist-pumping, hair-throwing rock show, the kind of ear-spanking, cheek-flapping, insanely high SPL hell that flattens the foam in your earplugs, recedes your hairline, and leaves you with a minor heart arrhythmia. It’s not enough to put the Strokes in light rotation in your iTunes. It’s not enough to finger your white iPod’s areola until the volume indicator is a solid blue bar…so high that the neurotic bitch in the next cubicle is driven into a blind fury by irritating ssss ssss ssss from your earbuds. The sad truth is that you can crank those earbuds until your tympanic membranes rupture and bleed, until your white collar of corporate conformity is stained with the red badge of rock & roll rebellion, but it will still never equal the chest-crushing thump of an 18” subwoofer beating you into spiritual submission. You’ll never achieve a truly transformational level of emotional catharsis through a pair of tiny white wires. You need the kind of overwhelming auditory experience that purges your anxieties and fills you with the hot white glow of sensory overload – at least every once in a while. So where can you get that kind of experience this weekend? Antone’s. Saturday night all-girl AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles will channel Angus, Malcolm, Cliff, Phil, Bon, and Brian in a retrospective of the Australian supergroup’s legendary career. Big balls? Maybe not, but you can expect a respectable cover thereof. Joining the Belles will be Austin rockers the Addictions and the Quick and the Dead, both of whom feature their own energetic female singers. For those about to rock…without a cock… we salute you!
This article appears in April 21 • 2006.
