The Centimeters at Goldfingers

Some of the pictures here warrant a bit of explanation. If you've never seen the Centimeters, they put on a strange and wonderful show. The two lead vocalists are like salt and pepper. Max is a more down to earth Bowiesque singer, while Nora is unpredictable, wild and out of control. They're accompanied by two keyboard players (Phillip and Rich) and a guitarist (Ray). Musically, they're very good and different from anything else in LA right now (the only band I can think of with a similar sound was the Fibonacci's).

At this show there was a girl dancing rather energetically right from the start of the show. Other people (including me) were grooving a little, but this girl was really into it. I think she was probably a friend of the bands, or at least a regular fan (this was the first time I've seen them). About 3 or 4 songs into the show, she starts leaning on the stage and hitting Max and Nora while they're singing (see cent12.jpg). So then Nora starts hitting her back, and eventually Max shoves her away with his foot.

During the next song, first Rich comes out and starts dancing with her (cent17.jpg), then he goes back to his keyboard and Nora comes out and starts alternately dancing and wrestling with her. Their dancing was equal parts kinetic, playful, violent, and semi-erotic. I got a few pictures of it, but it was hard to get focus lock because it's a dark club, they were moving around fast, and they were practically right on top of me. In fact Nora inadvertantly kicked me in the nuts at one point while the other girl was swinging her around. Thankfully, she wasn't swinging her very fast, and Nora wasn't wearing steel-toed boots or anything. Think of this as a warning guys, if Nora starts horsing around in the crowd and you're standing near the front, guard them jewels (unless you're into that sort of thing, of course :-).

Anyway, I enjoyed the show a lot (I think this is the only concert where I've been kicked in the balls and can still say I enjoyed the show) I haven't seen any band this strange since Nina Hagen was performing a lot in LA. I definitely recommend you check this band out.

Note - I found out that the dancing girl's name is Jane, and she's in another band with one or more of the members of the Centimeters. I missed them, but they opened for Third Grade Teacher on Friday the 23rd.