let's hear it for the black dots, who took second place in the 4th annual la palma battle of the bands last night!

it was awesome to see so many people show up for their first real gig, and very cool to see a girl had bootlegged parts of my flier onto a tshirt. when michelle and i got there, things were a little up in the air - no one knew when they were going on, sound checks that were supposed to happen just didn't happen, they were told amps would be provided and then when they showed up amps were not there... this last one really sucks, cuz they had to scramble home for their practice amps, and everyone else had fifty foot tall amps and crap. thankfully, el brando showed up and was able to run home and contribute his amp for the cause.

the first band that played, prism (you should now make the patented steph laserbeam noise, because i think that's what you hear when a prism splits white light into a million colors a'la a pink floyd record cover), won the last two years in a row - this year they were judging instead... we heard 'em again later on that night, and i don't actually remember hearing them during this first set because of all of the backstage fun that was going on. finally danielle ushered us out to the lawn, where we watched the first competing band, straight to rage. they were a group of 8th graders that only did ac/dc and iron maiden covers. musically they were good but they didn't play anything orginal and that loses points in my book. they had pretty good presence on stage, i think, and they handled it pretty good when the guitarist's strap got disconnected and the singer had to help him out with it while still singing. sure, for a little while it looked like he was singing into the guys butt, but they made it work.

black dots came on next, and the awesome thing is that just about everyone in the audience was there for black dots fun - everyone just went apeshit with the chanting, and cheering and yelling and shenanigans when they appeared on stage. they played the laundry song (i think it's called?) for their mic check song. for their actual set, they did "chump sandwich", a ballad, and a rockin' fun cover of the white stripes' "we're going to be friends". after that came "the barnyard song (cow goes moo)" and an amazing metal cover of the classic "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands". seriously, i've not seen that many bands that are genuinely fun to watch on stage. i'm not just saying that cuz danielle's my sister. their antics are right up their with the vandals; their energy is contagious. they were the only band that was able to get the crowd to clap, they got people to bust out lighters for the ballad, they got a mosh pit going. sure the pit was broken up very quickly by park officials (by that i mean a soccermom in a la palma community center polo shirt with a whistle), but no other band got this kind of reaction from the crowd, and they were all trying to.

next came the wachovia/wazowski/wachowski/whatever volta, a rock trio comprised of a pair of twin guys and their friend. among other tunes, they played a creed song; while they were good musically their vocals were really bad. and they looked way too old for this competition. no offense, but i hope they feel like chumps that they won against high schoolers and eigth graders.

last to play was the prophylactics - no wait, it was the prolifics. they sucked royal rapping ass and do not deserve any more mention here. they got a bit upset with me just before their last song, because they were talking to the crowd, trying to get them going, and they say "just pretend we're your favorite band ever" and i yelled "BLACK DOTS!!!" yeah they were dum.

one other awesome thing about the show is that for the first time in a year all five of us california siblings were in the same place at the same time. wish justin could've joined us to make it 6, that's a nice round number. but it was amazing to just hang out with everyone. it was also very cool that the stickers got such a warm reception; i think i might call kinkos and find out how much it'd cost to get real ones made up that are weatherproof and all that for applying to cars and whatnot.

so that was battle of the bands in a nutshell - cheers to the black dots, and go buy and orange county register today cuz they'll probably have their picture in there!