Athfest 2009: Music in all of the nooks and crannies

Friday (late night), June 26th 2009

Brave New Citizen &
Casper & the Cookies

My carefully-written itinerary informed us that the next and last act of the night would be the one-of-a-kind band Casper & the Cookies. However, the Deaf Judges show had ended a bit early, and we found ourselves with some unplanned time on our hands. What to do? Since we were all suffering from a slight bit of exhaustion, wandering ever so slowly towards Ciné seemed like the best idea of the night. And boy, am I glad this was our choice!

On the way to the next venue, I found one more example of the reason why I love Athens so much. Just before we reached Ciné, we heard small snatches of good rock music coming from somewhere. Being the massively curious person that I am, I insisted that we find the source of these tunes. We followed our ears to an outdoor stage tucked away behind the Little Kings Shuffle Club. The band playing there was rocking out to an excited audience of fans enveloped in the semi-darkness while scrolling words of poetry flashed behind them. After fully enjoying their set, we turned to the nearest Athfest staff member and inquired about this mysterious band. They were Brave New Citizen, we were told. A quick glance at the notes I had taken on all 170+ bands' myspaces told me that I had marked them under the "good" category, but for the sake of my underage friends, had left them off of the itinerary since Little Kings is generally a 21 and up place. I rejoiced in the fact that fate had given us a chance to hear them anyway. This is truly the foundation for my love of Athens: the discovery! Unexpectedly finding (sometimes literally) bands that I've never gotten to hear and adding them to my list of worthy musical acts is at the heart of my enthusiasm for this town!

Feeling kind of enlightened, we stepped over to the Casper & the Cookies show to catch their entertaining set. As always, their songs had a very unique, indie feel to them which was full of pure fun and very reminiscent of Boston indie band Lemon Demon's sound. Also, I couldn't help but smile as I noticed that all of the men in the band wore bright, glittery eyeshadow and wonderfully eccentric clothing which seemed to somehow fit with their musical style. All in all, it was quite an amusing and enjoyable end to the night.

For more blogs about Athfest 2009, click here! I'll be updating regularly, so be sure to check back often. Also, don't forget to check out concert videos from Dreams So Real, Venice is Sinking, Dead Confederate and many more at http://www.youtube.com/echoreynofathens!