Skeleton Key opened the show for Therapy? and Girls against Boys at the Black Cat in Washington, DC. Besides the regular drummer, they had another person who made violent percussive noises. They used different microphones for the different kinds of vocal processing they had in their songs, which I liked. Their songs were funky with a hard edge and I thought they were pretty interesting (enough to make me want to go buy their music).
Girls against Boys headlined. Clearly, this was the band most of the crowd had come to see, given their reaction and given the fact that this is their hometown. I had never heard their music and while it isn't bad, it isn't something that I thought is terribly great either. They played toned-down, but aggressive punk rock (DC style). The lead singer's vocals and delivery reminded me of The Cure's Robert Smith. Not too surprisingly, I've always gotten flamed for making negative remarks about local, particularly DC, bands, and I'd like to take this opportunity to tell all wannabe flamers to send their flames to /dev/null.
Therapy? opened their set with "From Northern Ireland, the home of tanks, guns, and bombs, we are Therapy?" and were the highlight of the show. They were tight and energitic on the stage right from the beginning and got better as they went along. It was surprising for me to see a band like Therapy? not headlining this show. This was a downer for me because their set didn't last long enough. The songs they played included Stories, Misery, Diane (all from their latest release, Infernal Love), Nowhere, Isolation, Unbeliever, and Turn (from Troublegum). Somewhere in there was some clowning around, a presentation of flowers by Girls against Boys, and a bit of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water. They ended their set with a blistering rendition of Screamager. I hope they'll back---this is definitely a band worth keeping an eye out for.