Blandness In Seattle

Friday night, our buddy remarked that in NYC these days, you can tell how good a club is by how many people are outside smoking. Saturday night down at the Croc, we reflected that you can probably tell how good a band's going to be by how many body piercings and tattoos you can spot in the crowd. By that measure, we didn't have much to look forward to from Alexi Murdoch.

The opening set was from a Las Vegas band called Midnight Movies; in 1967, the Velvet Underground's music was dangerous. In 2007, it's boring.

In fact, safe and non-threatening was the order of the night. The normally scuzzy, divy Crocodile Cafe was filled with a crowd more accustomed to seeing a live performance at The Bait Shop on The O.C. than, well, an actual live performance. One of the security guys verified for us that, in his experience (Murdoch having played the Croc previously), Alexi Murdoch fans are not the sort who are prone to drunken brawls.

Still, we've got to admit, Murdoch packed the house. The show was sold out in advance of the performance. We skipped out for a drink elsewhere (with a shorter bar wait) after Midnight Movies and returned for the Scottish-born singer-songwriter's set. It definitely wasn't our cup of tea, but we hesitate to criticize too harshly as everyone else seemed to be having a good time. That said, on more than one occasion we've gone into a show not knowing much about the artist and been won over; Murdoch didn't manage to do that.