After battling a general sense of illness for Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, I headed off with Veronica Friday evening to see Ladytron at the Paradise Rock Club. It was spooky in a sense because only the day before the Rhode Island club fire had claimed 96 lives. I've mentioned before how I think Boston clubs are in general poorly laid out. Before the headliners took the stage, club management made an announcement advising everyone to take note of the nearest emergency exit. The show came off without a hitch, however. I'm not huge on seeing electronic bands live ... they'd better do something to make it interesting because watching people twiddle knobs is not interesting. Ladytron were guilty of the crime of knob twiddling. During one song, one of the male synth players appeared to be tapping the same, single key for the five minute duration of the song. No conversation. Minimal dancing, or even head bobbing. That being said, the show was enjoyable. Ladytron's songs catch your attention effectively enough, and the matching outfits are certainly cool, in a Clockwork Orange, "me and my three droogs" kind of way.

I forgot to mention that I saw The D4 a few weeks back at T.T. the Bear's Place in Cambridge. A heavy dose of garage rock from the kiwi quartet. They rocked the joint in no uncertain terms, leaving me with a persistent ringing in my ears as I got up early for journal club the next morning. These guys can definitely play, and just plain kick your ass on stage. I find their album 6Twenty a smidge boring however, not an uncommon problem for today's garage rock bands ... they just can't capture the live energy on record.