Troika fest is easily the best way to see as many local bands as possible in a short amount of time and for a great price ($25 for three days). This year's line up is a fine one, with some of my favorite local heavy bands. See the full schedule here, and check out my list of the best shows of the festival.
Thursday: Valient Thorr with Double Negative and Hog at Motorco Friday: In the Year of the Pig with MAKE, Americans in France and Naked Gods at Pinhook; also, try to catch Whatever Brains at 618 Foster Saturday: Organos with Phil Cook & His Feat at the craft show (1 p.m.); Filthybird and Chatham County Line at Motorco (7 p.m.); Pink Flag at Motorco (midnight); Mount Moriah at Fullsteam (11:30 p.m.) and Spider Bags at Pinhook (11:30 p.m.)
Also, not part of Troika, but happening at the Casbah on Friday and definitely worth your time: a heavy show with Black Skies, Cough (doomy Relapse band) and Resister (from Greensboro). CORRECTION!: This show is at Nightlight in Chapel Hill on Friday. Lurch, Black Skies and 38 Gauge are at Casbah TONIGHT (Wednesday)
OK, lesson learned. Buying a 3-day pass for a music festival only makes economic sense if you actually go all three days. And if you go to more than one show on any given night. I had good intentions of doing both at the Troika Festival but The Jesus Lizard kind of got in the way, and I underestimated my desire to drive around Durham going to different venues.
Seriously, here's a tip for the Troika organizers: Next year, buy an old school bus and ferry people for free between the venues. You could probably even get someone like local music-friendly Piedmont Biofuels involved. Maybe even have someone play an acoustic set on the bus. I know if they'd had such a thing last night I would have used it, because after hunting for a parking place at Broad Street Cafe, I just didn't feel like driving anywhere else.
We arrived at Broad Street early for The Dynamite Brothers (left), and the place was already getting crowded. I hadn't seen them in a while, and Dave hadn't ever seen them, so I was very much looking forward to the show. They were tight as always, and had me wondering once again if they aren't the best band in the Triangle. Not sure I'm ready to bestow that quite yet because The Love Language (above) are giving them stiff competition.
Next up was a Rat Jackson (left), with whom I was unfamiliar, and, for the first part of their show, unimpressed. But something happened, and by the end of their show I found myself really getting into their geeky, straight-forward rock. At the end of their set, the guitarist introduced The Loners as a band that would "rock twice as hard with half as many people -- damn them!" That was pretty funny, and I have to hand it to them rocking pretty hard on their own.
Indeed The Loners were next, and they did rock. Twice as hard? I don't know, but they did rock pretty hard.
By the time The Love Language came on, Broad Street was packed and uncomfortable. I got up front a good 20 minutes before they played, and I still couldn't get right next to the stage. But The Love Language made up for it because they are easily the most exciting band, and maybe the best, in the Triangle right now.
music.mync.com and Triangle Music both have the details on this. Basically Troika's Thursday line-up of venues will also feature a show on the stage of the Durham Performing Arts Center with Bowerbirds, Future Kings of Nowhere, Humble Tripe and Ghost Cats. That means (as far as I can tell) that the audience and the bands will all be on the stage.
Indeed 