Shut Up and Rock! The Fucking Champs @ Spaceland, January 13, 2007

Interspersed between the usual crowd of young hipsters at Spaceland Saturday night loomed patches of another type of audience: black jeans, long hair, wait! Was that an Iron Maiden t-shirt? Very rarely do the metal kids come together alongside their polar opposites, the hip kids, to enjoy a band. At least not without a possible fight or two. But this was not the case as one of the strangest varieties of audience members, and performers piled into Spaceland Saturday January 13.

And who were they all waiting to see? Well according to the L.A. Times it was the opening band, Citay, but really, it was in fact, The Fucking Champs.

Being the excellent reporting person that I am, I not only did NOT read said Times article, I am stating this purely on hearsay. Citay, for an opening band, was not bad. They would probably have been better if there charming folky pop songs sung by several men and women in harmony complete with flute, keys, tambourines, and several other band members had been followed by several other bands with similar tastes in music. But opening for semi-instrumental metal music bands? Who decided to book them?

This odd choice on behalf of the booking people subsequently led me to go sit in the other room at Spaceland pretty much till the Fucking Champs took the stage. My ears would need the rest considering the sheer volume that was to be put out by the main band.

Three nondescript guys take the stage. They possibly could have been your stoner friends in college, or now perform in some kind of jazz fusion ensemble; anything but the sounds that were about to come out from the amplifiers. The sounds are loud and harsh. The kind of sweaty rock that, being a girl, should intimidate me, and yet I find myself quite compelled to stare and watch.

One factor that separates T.F.C’s from your run of the mill metal band is their use of double lead guitars- no bass, no vocals, just two leads, and inspiration in part from Thin Lizzy, a known influence for them, which also makes me appreciate them even more.

There is no point trying to recall names of songs- they do stop and start, change tempo, change key, but other than the two songs that actually do have lyrics (Extra Man and Some Swords) The Fucking Champs’ simply throw out a tornado of sound that you need to just take in and try not to let your ear drums burst. The structures of the songs though seem very calculated. It might have to do with the very little moving on their part during the show. Or, perhaps they are able to simplify such complex tunes by looking like it is nothing to them. They simply flick their wrists- and out comes rock.