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Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Finch, Foxy Shazaam! and Tickle Me Pink - SOMA July 18th 2008 So July 18th found me at the Soma show featuring Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Finch, Foxy Shazam!, and Tickle Me Pink. This show was a bit schizophrenic as there was no real unifying theme to the bands other than they all had guitars and drums.

Tickle Me Pink will I'm sure be playing a prom scene on an O.C.-type show in the near future, perhaps the new 90210. They were POP rock, and had the requisite long metro hair styles, tight jeans, and t-shirts with "funny" phrases on them. Their lead singer looked like the chick who makes out with her brother in Eurotrip. I will give them this, they did a spot-on cover of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by the Darkness, so much so that I was coming out of the bathroom and thought they were playing the actual song in between bands.

Foxy Shazaam! featured mostly guys that should be doing musical theater. The lead singer had mousy moustache, used a high voice for effect (to contrast when he tried to scream), and had a cornucopia of pantomimes that he preformed with the microphone and mic stand. He also would tell nonsensical stories in between songs; the band made sure to begin immediately after said stories so the crowd didn't have time to realize they made no sense and start throwing their shoes. The keyboardist further proved my theory that a keyboardist doesn't have much to do on stage so they bounce around and generally make fools of themselves. He also looked like Dr. Teeth from the Electric Mayhem (from the Muppets). They did hold my attention by being very weird, but I won't be buying their EP anytime soon.

Finch mostly rocked. It was not up to there normal standards, mainly because of song selection for this show. Not being the headliner for this show, they had a shortened set list which had too many songs from their inferior second album. Some of them are actually quite good like Insomniac Meat, but when the first album is so much better there is always a let up in crowd intensity when a second album song comes up. They also didn't play Untitled (from What it is to Burn), which is my favorite song of theirs to hear live because of the way it whips the crowd up into a frenzy. They did play two new songs of their upcoming EP, Daylight and From Hell. I enjoyed them both, although From Hell dragged a little bit. Although this show didn't top the last time Finch was at Soma, it did enough to tide me over until I can see them after their new record comes out.

Scaring Kids Scaring Kids brought up the rear, and this is who most of the youngin's at Soma were there to see. They had a multiple word band name, which is a requirement these days. Having never heard them before I didn't know what to expect but they provided a decent show. If I had to describe them I would say a mix of Thrice and Brand New. The crowd was definitely enjoying it, especially crowd pleasers like "My Darkest Hour" (You see, the crowd had to enjoy it, because it was a "crowd pleaser"). I liked the 80's metal feel to some of the songs. I might have to check out more of there stuff. Definetly didn't scare me (at least not as much as Foxy Shazaam!) but then again I'm not a kid anymore.

All in all not a bad way to spend a Friday night (luckily I had already watched the Dark Knight at midnight the previous night (wow, that's a lot of "nights"), otherwise I might not have been at the show). Each band brought something to the table, be it metrosexuality (Tickle Me Pink), weird beards (Foxy Shazaam!), awesomeness (Finch), and long band names (SKSK). Hope to see more from Finch and SKSK soon.

-Nick