I felt a little out of place at this show. It seemed that every punk from southeastern PA was at this, and then there was me. It's a shame that I had to go to this show alone because it was such a good show. When I got inside, it seemed like it took forever for Flin Flon to come onstage. I was standing in front of the stage on the left, and surrounded by smoking, loud kids, and a few nice ones, but once Flin Flon was on stage I was happy. Flin Flon contains Nattles, who was in Cold Cold Hearts, and Mark Robinson, of Air Miami and Unrest fame. They played a little less than an hour's worth of very good, deranged pop songs, much to the chargin of most of the crowd. It's a shame that Mark Robinson isn't relevant anymore, or else he could have shown the kids how to rock, but he does still write a mean pop song.

Between sets it was drool city for me because my two indie rock crushes, Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein, were on stage, standing right next to each other. Mary Timony was next (she was supposed to go first, but got caught in traffic, most likely the Schuykill Expressway lie everyone else) and she played a damn fine set of more dernaged pop songs. I was hoping for a Helium song for two, but she stuck to new stuff. Hopefully there will be a solo album out of this becuase these were some incredible songs. It was just her and a drummer, and one song it was her on violin and the drummer, which was the best song of the night.

I think Sleater-Kinney broke a land speed record when they got ready to play. There equipment was set up in less than ten miuntes, much to delight of the people who were there just for them. A little talking and much smiling went on before they went into their first song, "Get Up", off of their new and best album, "The Hot Rock". The continued the night playing more and more crowd-pleasers (aren't they all crowd-pleasers?). The songs I remember were: Taste Test, The Day You Went Away, One Song For You, Heart Factory, The End Of You, Start Together, Not What You Want, The Hot Rock, The Drama You've Been Craving, Hubcap, a new song, and one or two others. They came back out for two encores in which they played "Dig Me Out" and "Turn it On", and then ended with an incredible version of "Jenny". They didn't talk much between the songs, but Carrie did talk about going to see the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin, and of course she was all smiles. The finest moment of the night had to be their new song. If this is the direction they are planning to take with their songwriting, then the next album should be even better than this one, if you can imagine that. S-K are such a great band to see live. Their shows are energetic, they smile a lot, and you can definitely tell they are having fun. And it doesn't hurt to have the best damn drummer in indie rock, too.