Jill's POPPED! Diary for Monday, April 9

Bands I Caught: The Cobbs, The Asteroid #4

Venue: Johnny Brenda's

This season in hipster fashion, it's all about stripes. Horizontally-striped sweaters. Diagonally-striped tunics. Vertically-striped pants. Stripes, stripes, stripes. You just can't be in a band without 'em!

In all seriousness, this post marks the beginning of Phillyist's POPPED! coverage. We can't guarantee we'll be out every night, or that we'll see all the bands if we do, but we're trying our best. If you see one of us, be sure to say hey. You'll be able to spot us easily: we won't be wearing stripes.

The Cobbs
What a great way to start off the POPPED! Festival! The Cobbs played a quick, cohesive set which definitely got the audience (especially one crazy dancing fan) going. The Cobbs are strongly percussion-driven, but all of the musicians have a good deal of talent: I especially dug the lead guitarist. My one complaint is that the vocals were awfully hard to hear, especially for such a small space, and the band didn't seem to notice or care. Ah well. What I heard still sounded pretty good!

The Asteroid #4
As a rule, I really hate when bands feel they need to make an entrance in small venues, where they set up their own gear. It ruins the surprise, for one, and takes time away from the actual sets, for another. So when the last man onstage during set-up for The Asteroid #4 strummed a few guitar strings, turned a few knobs, and stepped on a few pedals, before leaving the stage bare for a good forty-five seconds, I was prepared to be unimpressed with the band. Fortunately, once they started playing music, and stopped making noise, they actually played a great set of psychedelic-inspired indie-pop, getting stronger with each song. If only they'd cut down on the discordant noise before beginning...