Welcome to the Machine

My own personal winter concert series continued Saturday night as I headed to the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville with Jersey Girl, her cousin, Kevin, and his roommate, to take in a performance by The Machine, the world-renowned ultimate Pink Floyd tribute band.

Now being that it was Jersey Girl who purchased the tickets, and she was in Ireland all week, I realized some point early Saturday afternoon that we hadn't set any specific plan, and that once said plan was in place, the evening could be touchy -- y'know, jet lag.

That was never an issue. Once again, Jersey Girl proved how hardcore she is, and though she did show some minor signs of being sluggish, she never crashed. Amazing, considering she returned from Dublin mere hours before the show, and other than a five-hour nap on the plane, would have been a wake for more than 24 hours by the time all was said and done. Excellent work. Especially since she was headed for the Jets-Browns game the following day, and we all know how that goes. Unfortunately I had to sell my tickets to attend a family Chanukah gathering. Considering how THAT tilt turned out, it was probably best. Stadium security can consider my non-presence their own Chanukah miracle. But I digress.

So Jersey Girl and troupe arrived at the Westgate Manor at around 6:30 p.m. and we set out on our way with me at the wheel. After stopping at Chili's and enjoying a pregame meal, we headed south. After a few detours caused by, well, my inability to pay full attention to where I was going, since my focus was on, well, um, certain pre-concert traditions designed to get me in the right state of mind, we got to the Starland Ballroom at around 8:15 pm for a show advertised to start at 7:30.

I figured this would be perfect timing. They only advertised one opening act, so I figured we would catch the very end of that set -- or, if we were truly lucky, arrive as they were leaving the stage -- and be set to go when The Machine hit the stage.

Insert generic phrase about best laid plans of mice and men here.

We get inside and find a nice cozy spot up against the back wall behind the sound board. There were people behind us up in a room with a bar, they had seats and were perched in what were the best seats in the house (and possibly the only seats in the house, after all, Starland is a general admission venue), viewing the stage through glassless windows.

We'll get back to those yahoos in a bit.

Like I said, there was no seating in this place, so it would be a standing-all-night kinda evening, which I was prepared for. Unfortunately, as the house lights dimmed and the screen rolled up in front of the stage, the opening band took the stage.

Apparently, in Sayreville, 7:30 means 8:20.

While this wasn't ideal, we figured we'd deal, especially when the band -- Matt Koziel -- turned out to be pretty good. They were young, but did a great job with some blues-based rock tunes and some fantastic two-part harmonies between Matt and a cat that looked like the black kid in "Can't Hardly Wait" that went around trying to reminisce with everyone.

Granted, while the rest of the band looked totally average and casually dressed, the bass player looked very out of place with his vest, shit, tie, sunglasses and Mohawk, bouncing all over the place like he had angel dust of dinner. In fact, as Jersey Girl accurately quipped, the guy looked like he had escaped from No Doubt.

Still, the band was quality, and our appreciation of their work was only enhanced by the fact that they played for only 30 minutes.

Sweet. Time for The Machine.

Yeah, um, no.

The lights dimmed again and the screen rolled back up and a SECOND opening act took the stage.

Very not cool.

Apparently, in Sayreville, "The Machine, with special guest Matt Koziol" means "The Machine with special guest Matt Koziol plus a random shitty band of 19-year-old posers."

I knew we were in trouble when the one guy said he forgot the power chord for his keyboard and would just be singing, while the actual lead singer opened the show by saying he would like to dedicate the entire show to John Lennon, who, "was shot 20 years ago today."

Cheer up, Lennon was shot Dec. 8.... 1980!

But hey, what's 7 years between friends?

Needless to say, these guys weren't very good. And they fucking played longer than the advertised opening act.

Now a couple of things did manage to distract us from the shittiness of having to stand through two bands we didn't want to see.

First, it seemed like every freak in Jersey was out. Not to mention scores of very unattractive people in various getups. Dreadlocks, long and unwashed hair, beards, she-males. The list goes on. Of course, nobody complained when the two girls who couldn't have been older than 18 or 19 put on a little lesbian softcore show right in front of us, but still, wacky collection of cats at this joint.

Another thing we noticed is that there were a shit load of young kids -- high school age -- in the crowd. I guess they were there for the opening acts, but some seemed to be into The Machine when they finally came on, so kudos to the for recognizing quality tunege.

Unfortunately, the cats sitting behind us felt the need to bang away on the tables during The Machine's sets, which was quite annoying, not mention out of rhythm. At least I had the common courtesy to play air drums!

When all was said and done, and with my knees and Jersey Girl's back starting to act up, The Machine finally took the stage just after 10pm

It was worth the wait!

I swear, if I closed my eyes, I would have thought it was actually Pink Floyd on the stage. And they had a Floyd-esque stage set up, too (the accompanying photo is from a show they did somewhere in Europe a few years ago. There was no The Wall motif Saturday night, though they did have a nice psychedelic light show).

They played a nice sampling of most of Pink Floyd's albums, though they totally ignored Momentary Lapse of Reason and played just one song of The Division Bell and two off Dark Side of the Moon. But they played a bunch of tunes off The Wall, which is my favorite Floyd album, so it was all good.

With all the music in my collection it's hard to listen to all of it, and this band did an awesome job reminding me how much I truly love Pink Floyd.

A good time was had by all.