January 3rd, 2002
The Poolmen and Inverness
Zappuchino's, San Mateo

I was bored Thursday night so I decided to go check out two local bands I had hardly heard of and never had seen. This was also my first time visiting Zappuchino's and it was a pretty cool place, just a small little rec center in downtown San Mateo. Good to see places like that where local bands can get a show. The first band up was The Poolmen. The PA was really shitty and the vocals could hardly be heard. Musically they were ok for a super-pop punk band (Note From Editor: Super-pop punk is the term we use for anything poppier than Green Day. The term pop-punk is too over used.) Anyway like I was saying musically they were ok, performance wise they didn't seem to be into their music at all. No passion but they were pretty young kids and hopefully it was just some sort of stage fright. The other band that played was Inverness. Pretty much the same thing as the prior band, ok super-poppy music, no live performance passion. The lead singer was a tad bit bothersome because he would occassionally pretend he was really into for a moment or two then just go back to standing up on stage looking bored. Also seemed to me these kids dressed a lot more "punk" than they actually were... image is nothing, thirst is everything folks. The San Mateo kids seemed to enjoy it though, really a poppy teenie bopper crowd. I'd love to see how they would react to a real punk or hardcore band playig there. Probably be throwning away their Chuck Taylors in horror.

-The One