Smoking New Year (In Non-smoking Venue)
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 14, 2006 8:02PM
Two Chicago pop-punk faves are ringing in the New Year* at The Metro. Swoon-worthy gods of the mall, Alkaline Trio will be headlining the evening, but they’ve enlisted the aid of legendary, and recently regrouped, locals The Smoking Popes to insure that everyone is happy, no matter which camp they belong to.
We personally admit to enjoying both bands, even if we think neither is in their heyday any longer. Each group’s winning melodies, no matter how polished, can melt our curmudgeonly critical ears in an instant and return us to the days when we could actually pull off wearing $99 motorcycle jackets from The Alley without feeling like a total tool.
We took pause once we heard the price of admission for the evening, though. $66.00 a ticket. Sixty-six dollars?! And that doesn’t even include free drinks?! Or goofy top-hats?! WHAT?!
Once we took time to read the fine print we discovered that the price also included an “exclusive surprise gift.” So we put on our reporting shoes, that we have yet to properly break in by the way, and set off to uncover just what this gift was. A free t-shirt? A recording of the show? Some of those things that make lots of noise when you twirl them? All of those sounded pretty lame to us, but we weren’t holding out hope for anything too cool.
Well, sometimes our pessimism is ill-founded. It turns out that the the premium is a specially pressed limited edition split 7” of exclusive recordings from the bands. Considering the Smoking Popes have only recently started to record new material this is actually pretty exciting! So, the collector inside of us is super stoked about this even if we do have to wonder just how all those little pieces of vinyl are going to make it through the high energy of a NYE punk rock show unscathed.
Tickets are on sale this Friday, November 17, at noon. SOLD OUT!
*Can we make that the first and only time we employ that cliché this, or next, year? Thanks. Awesome.