Bell X1 Blows Into Town in a Sprinter

or how to spend an excellent Tuesday night in Pittsburgh

Okay, so yesterday Geo and I ventured out of the comfort zone of our Italian leather sofa to catch the Irish band, Bell X1 at a great little intimate club on the South Side. And get this...it was a Tuesday.

Yeah. Tuesday. A school night. We're rebels. You can't stop us and our maverick ways.

Anywho, long story short (wha? a short story from me? I know, right? this post is full of surprises!) we.LOVED.THEM!!

They were so much better than we expected. The lead singer, who I will call "Michael" since I have no idea what his name is, totally looks like an older version of Michael Cera from "Arrested Development" fame.

They write such great music. It's full of layers and witty phrasings delivered with an off beat cadence. "M.C." is so much fun to watch perform. Much like my heartthrob, Rhett, he's one of those artists who closes his eyes, gets completely absorbed into the music and lets his body convulse however it wants without the slightest bit of self consciousness. At times I thought, "this is how Frankenstein would look if he was so inclined to dance". How could you not enjoy being a part of that type of abandon?

There are so many great lines in their songs, all delivered with a silky smooth voice:

My tongue is scaling... the north face of your neck/and we're glaring... like warriors/but I have a feeling you won't look at me that way...in the morning

Your picking your knickers out of your ass like your plucking a one string harp

and my favorite from The Great Defector:

You're the chocolate at the end of my...cornetto/I love the way your underwire bra/always sets off that X-ray... machine

One funny thing that happened, at the top of the show "Michael" asked everyone to move the tables and chairs closer to the stage. Of course, we all complied. At the end of the set there was no room for the band to weave through the crowd to wait in the back for us to do the little end-of-show dance and beg them via applause to return for an encore. So "Mikey" looks out and exposes the entire sham that is the encore by saying something like "this is where we'd normally walk off and then you clap for us to come back. Do you want us to come back? Should we just pretend we went off stage and just keep playing?" To which everyone cheered and yelled for them to stay.

Anywho...we had such a great time. They left us wanting them to return again soon. A school night very well spent. Here are three songs from the evening recorded on my Barney Rubble pocket camera.

Flame (in which he dances like a spazzy Frankenstein and plays... COWBELL!)

Rocky Takes a Lover

and the closer, The Great Defector (won't you tell us about those rabbits, George)

You can hear more songs streaming on their myspace page here. Enjoy!