A note to showgoers: if you don’t like the music you’re hearing at a show, you should leave. The solution is not to stay at the show and just drink more. I learned this through my experience at the 9-band release party for Tomorrow Never Happened, a compilation put together by The Pill and released on Man With A Gun Records.

     Anyway, I left the Middle East fucked up and fed up, and both of these things fed on each other. The more fed up I got, the more fucked up I got, and the more fucked up I got, the more fed up I got. It’s not that the music was horrible, it’s just that it didn’t grab me the way it seemed to be grabbing those around me and all of the bands I saw sounded so similar.

     I missed the first four of the bands this evening, and I do actually enjoy Mittens, who played first, so this isn’t an all-bad review you’re about to read. The drones of feedback that greeted me from the end of December Sound’s set were pretty cool too, but I can’t really say anything more about them, Emergency Music or the Bon Savants because I didn’t witness them.

     The next five bands seemed to be part of a similar scene. It is a scene with which I’m not that familiar, and it is a scene from which I may inevitably alienate myself with this review. The music is energetic, driving and fashionable, like Boston’s answer to New York dance bands like The Rapture and The Faint, which seems to be an answer to 80s skronky dance groups like Gang of Four.

     Almost all of these bands had five people or more with a lead singer who doesn’t play an instrument. This is a concept that has seemed to come into vogue again since the eighties reign of lead singers like Dave Gahan, Morrissey, Ian McCulloch, Michael Hutchence and Simon LeBon. And all of the bands at the show seemed derived from these lead singer-fronted groups of yesteryear, except many did not have the hooks to pull it off.

     The lead singer thing is a tough predicament. All of these guys were dudes who would dance a little at the mic, and then kinda shy away as if they were embarrassed about the fact they were just dancing. I guess this is what happens when loner kids who listened to loner bands in their rooms grow up. At least their forefathers had swagger.

     My suspicions of 80s influences were confirmed by the Good North’s admirable cover of Depeche Mode’s "Enjoy the Silence." It was a faithful rendering with a few more rockin’ areas than the original. They had the whole crowd singing along, but why play a cover when you only have a 20-minute set? Do they not think their originals are good enough? I didn’t mind the originals they played, given that I didn’t know what lay ahead was a string of similar bands. Singer Luke O’Neil is like Morrissey in Rivers Cuomo’s clothing. He seemed self-conscious, but he did look cool for the fleeting seconds that he seemed into the performance.

     This self-conscious singer situation sort of fixed itself as the night wore on, and the singers in the bands who played later had more time to drink. But this was not quite the case for Wade Settle, the singer from the Brooklyn outfit Aerial Love Feed. Donning a pair of dark sunglasses, he made hardly any contact with the audience, and the songs sounded like Billy Idol’s "White Wedding" sung by a whiter White Zombie. I should point out however, that their song on the comPILLation is actually pretty great. The production is slick and cool like a speedway might be in November.

     The Information were pretty good, but there is not enough space in their music. It seemed like there was not a moment when the keyboard player wasn’t playing. I also wanted more interaction between guitarists. They have the chops, but lack a little bit of communication. I know they have the chops because their song on Tomorrow Never Happened is great. It sounds like Martin Hannett producing the Vines. One possible cause for optimism is that a new song, introduced as "A Simple Plan," was the highlight of their set. There was even a line that said something about "seen me last Friday I was down at the Pill."

     Max, the singer from The Information, was quite charming and hilarious too, giving members of the Cignal a hard time for playing a lousy set.

Members of The Cignal fought back by spraying Max with shaken up cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

     Despite criticism from The Information, The Cignal did not play a lousy set. In fact they were highlight of the evening. Sounding like nothing I’ve ever heard to compare it to, the lead instrument is mostly the keyboard, playing shiny little riffs as the singer alternates between being a third guitarist/singer and a lead singer. And their energy spread over the crowd and gave me a second wind.

     That second wind was gone however by the time Babystrange hit the stage, opening up with The Beatles’ "Hey Bulldog." I had overdosed on local music. Babystrange could have had me if they didn’t begin with a cover. The band itself has a lot of style, but I just didn’t have the patience for style. I think what I said into my pocket tape recorder was something to the effect of "I want passion, not fashion." I’m not positive though, the speech is slurred.

     I feel the need to make the point here that Tomorrow Never Happened itself is great. There is a consistency to the compilation that makes it stand well as a cohesive unit. This works great on disc, but listening to a bunch of the participating bands play 20-minute sets live was pretty tiresome. No variety. All the bands clad in dark, slightly retrofied, making me get drunker and drunker