I got out of work a bit early yesterday, which was nice. Downtown was such a madhouse though that it took me over two hours to get home on the bus, which wasn’t as nice. I finally made it though and thought, “Damn, glad I’m not going out tonight.”

So of course Nik and I went out. There was a show down at Studio 7 and it lured me back into the turkey day craziness. It would have been silly not to go see two bands I like, Brain Failure and Whole Wheat Bread, when they were playing a 10 minute drive from the house. I had seen both bands a couple of years back doing opening slots. Brain Failure was the first (and so far only) Chinese punk band I’ve seen, and since that previous show I had picked up one of their albums and enjoyed it. I liked Whole Wheat Bread at an earlier show too, but it was Nik who became the real fan and got two of their records.

The show was a good time except for one thing: the club was freezing. Inexplicably, Studio 7 kept its doors open for the entire show and yesterday was the coldest day of the winter so far. If anything shows are usually overheated, particularly once you pack in a bunch of dancing punks. I’ve left the Rat in Boston and CBGB in NYC sopping wet with sweat, but I’ve never exited a show chilled to the bone. I was stomping my feet trying to keep the circulation going and even the slamming didn’t do much to warm the place up.

We got their in time to see the Diablotones, a local ska act that was entirely by the numbers. I joked with Nik that I was waiting for them to play a song called “Rude Boy Being Rude, Rudely”. Brain Failure was up next and they rocked. The only disappointment was that they didn’t play “Call the Police,” my favorite song of theirs. Otherwise, they put in a great, high energy set and it seems their touring has paid off because they had a lot of fans at the show. I sometimes call them Beijing’s answer to Operation Ivy but they actually didn’t play much of their ska punk stuff last night. They were followed by Whole Wheat Bread, the only band of the night that entirely eschewed ska stylings. Most of their songs were straight ahead melodic hardcore, though this time they mixed it up with a couple of rap-punk numbers. While those poor Florida boys were no doubt freezing, they rocked the place and made Nik smile. We then stuck around for the first couple of songs of Big D and the Kids Table, but their white boy ska didn’t impress and we were so cold we decided to skip the rest of their set.

So today I give thanks for punk rock. Stay free, ya’ll.