By Jenny Ng

this was one of the few shows i had been to, considering the household that i reside in is a nazi regime. anyways, the parents were out of town so this was my chance to flee from prison. i heard about this show through robert, who had heard about it from his friend--an employee at urban outfitters. sarge had opened for the promise ring a couple weeks prior to this show and robert fell in love with their performance. the show was free, but we all had to bring canned foods in support of the food drive they were running. well, the dork forgot to bring his own canned good so i ended up giving him an extra can of my tuna. ::slaps robert:: back to the important stuff. robert and i met sophie and company downstairs of their dorm around 5:30. his sources told him it would start at 7. so we dicked around accordingly and got to the union south at ten to 7. we walked into the einstein room and saw elizabeth elmore doing a sound check of the set. she was in a black attire, sitting on stage strumming her guitar. we were the first to arrive, so we sat down and waited. after a while, no one showed up so we asked her what time the show started. it turned out the doors were supposed to open at 7:30, but it didn't begin until 9. anyways, we were already there so we hung out at the union. i had my camera with me loaded with b & w film, ready to take pics of the band. i asked if it'd be ok for me to take pictures and elizabeth was all for it (photos soon to be posted on the site). the first band to open the show was very secretary. most of the songs they played were instrumental, with an occasional singing by the guitarist. it was kind of unfortunate 'cos i really liked his voice. hehe. i've never known of a band to play so many different instruments on their set. among them were the tambourine, maracas and violin--all played by rachel dietkus. all their songs were really mellow. sophie made a comment that it would be good shit to listen to when she's depressed. all the indie kids stood still for the most part, with an occasional swaying and head-bobbing. then they played "narkargot" to wrap up their set--my favorite song of their's that evening. "nakargot" also had more vocals from the bassist. the next band to play was paris, tx. from madison, wi. (so i guess that's where the band's name came from...hehe, bad joke) front man, scott sherpe gave an absolutely mesmerizing performance. most of the songs opened with poetic lyrics about their hometown, madison, which they tied into the song. the music was danceable and was a dramatic change of sound compared to very secretary. there was much more movement from the crowd this time and the band got everyone's adrenaline going. around 10:45, sarge began their set. unfortunately, i couldn't stay out too late that night so i only saw them perform one song. elizabeth elmore's voice reminded me of lisa loeb and juliana hatfield. robert said the tracks they played from their first album included "crush" and "dear josie, love robyn"; from their second album was "fast girls" and "half as far." as i was leaving, everybody was dancing and getting into the music. i did manage to buy a copy of 'the glass intact' before i left the show and i'm loving it! overall, it was a great show.