Indecisive Youth, Clark W. Griswald & American Standard

In the newly remodeled Epicenter (formerly the Zocalo Room), Chico’s irreverent Indecisive Youth, along with their friends in American Standard and Clark W Griswald, got the crowd rockin’ and set the female contingent’s hearts a-swoon.

In the opening slot, the lads in American Standard blazed through a set with a bottled fury, remaining fairly stoic the whole time and not jumping around very much. I wanted to go tell them, "There’s a whole stage there. Get crazy!" But they just kind of stuck to their places like they were a fiendish band of cement garden gnomes. Which isn’t to say their Blink 182-ish barrage of catchy tunes wasn’t ripping and the audience didn’t enjoy their performance. They did. I just thought it could have been more animated.

Next up, Clark W. Griswald got moving to a groovy beat, laying down the funk in a vein similar to a hybrid between Incubus and 311. Definitely different. The drummer sets his set up sideways, akin to the dude from Incubus, and frankly, I think its cool. As he explained later, "It sort of lets the audience get involved a bit more. You can see what he’s doing." And it works. These guys are tight, and they definitely understand the proper use of stage space. The lead vocalist paces back and forth like a man possessed while the guitarist and bassist break it down and work the crowd.

Then the band du jour, Indecisive Youth, took the stage in full, big-hair regalia, replete with the necessary hideous fashion and hair extensions. I think they must have knocked over a wig shop recently, or perhaps raided grandma’s closet, because the nightmare hair weaves these fools were wearing weren’t costume shop quality, they were vintage.

Fairly rampant use of the devil sign hand-gesture, otherwise known as "throwin’ the horns," was in effect as frontman Shawn lead off with the statement, "Are you ready to rock?!" The crowd went into a hair-band-loving frenzy. The Youth then slammed through a bunch of songs from their new album, From Now On, and a punkified cover of the theme from Family Ties was also sneaked into the mix. Much pelvic gyration was witnessed and, in homage to those Aqua-Net heroes of yesteryear, I think I even saw some leather-clad chick in front flash everyone. I bet if Indecisive Brian’s hero, Ronny James Dio, was in attendance, he would have been throwin’ the horns for that.

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