The Rumours, the Negative Nancys at Artifice, Wednesday July 27, 2022

 

Pulsar Presents puts on a large number of wildly varied gigs around town, from metal to country to everything in between, but always interesting and different! We hadn't heard of the Rumours before this show, but Melanie did a bit of research and liked what she heard and when we found out it was an early night, we knew we had to check it out!

Vegas' own Negative Nancys opened the night at the very reasonable hour of 9:00, with a good crowd of folks already there and ready to rock! The NN's do their own brand of punk rock, driven by a solidly flashy drummer, rumblin' bass and some neat guitar interplay by the two frontwomen. Licks'n'leads are exchanged by each of them as well as the vocalizing. Unfortunately, the sound was a bit muddy for their set - possibly because we were off to the side - with the bass drum being the loudest instrument, which is never good for a guitar-based punk rock band, but they rocked nonetheless and the people were up'n'about from start to finish!

The Rumours got the middle slot of the night, which was nice for a touring band that hadn't been here before, and they had no trouble riling up the house and the crowd seemed to love them immediately! This Iowan trio has some heavy 70's influences from the likes of the Runaways (the guitarist definitely took some moves from Lita), Girlschool and Glam Rock in general. With a charismatic, powerful drummer rooted in the school of Clem Burke (even tho he wore an LA Guns t-shirt) who wasn't afraid to stand up and get the folks clapping along with the song before he picked up his sticks kicked in the song and two gals in front in matching hot pants'n't-shirts (and proudly braless), they had style to go along with their punk'n'roll sound. A few choreographed moves interspersed with their out'n'out rockin' for more visual kicks. Solid players all around, although nothing too fancy, cuz that wouldn't work for their songs, they just came to rock and that's what the people wanted! Lots of songs about sex'n'attitude, sung with a Joan Jett-like sneer (with a touch of Kim Shattuck and maybe Amyl from the Sniffers) and plenty of backing vocals to get ya singin' along. 

(B&W rockin' pic by Melanie Coffee!)

(Sorry, low light and my crummy phone camera means the pix aren't very focused)

I had an early day today so we couldn't stick around for the harmony-fueled pop punk from Crimson Riot, but hopefully, the rest of the folks were energized by the Rumours and stuck around to continue to rock! Thanks again to Pulsar for another high quality rock'n'roll evening - and for the reasonable time slots on a worknight!