Vortis, Royal Pines, Burlesque...Oh My!

I finally got to see Vortis live at The Viaduct Theater. It's good thing I didn't blink because I may have missed them. Classical succinct punk that takes no prisoners every 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Jim said afterwords that, "We don't believe in stage banter". The three piece was tight and needed no set list. Just a sound cue from Jim's drums after the last song ended. They definitely indicated some industrial (Big Black) influences when they broke the punk down and did their version of slowing down. It's always cool to see a punk show where the band cares that the crowd gets the whole picture, like Vortis did. I have been to punk shows where it is so sloppy and unrecognizable, and the band hangs their hat on that. So Vortis rarely slowed but was completely understandable. They were accompanied on stage by Viva La Muerte and the ladies of Hot and Heavy which was a sexy/titillating (not slutty) take on go go dancing/burlesque. The mix of the dancers and punk band brought back good memories of seeing Los Straightjackets and their go go dancers. The headliner was the Royal Pines, who played an up tempo Americana version of of punk that was sprinkled with slide guitar. It was very interesting.



It was a bunch of fun to expound on the evil wiles of Clear Channel with Jim after the show. We talked about the most sweetheart deal of sweetheart deals that Lollapalooza received from the city of Chicago. I have been following him chronicle this story on his blog. This story never ends, much like the rest of the malfeasance that Chicago's city and Cook County are stricken with. Go see Vortis play, but don't be 5 minutes late, you may miss 3 songs. Also, follow Jim's blog and get his stories in your in-box like I do. They never disappoint.