Hit and Run: The Trucks' High Dive Dance Party

A sign inside Fremont's High Dive states that the little bar's maximum occupancy is 98. Saturday night, with Bellingham's The Trucks in the house, it felt more like 398. Good for the band's young ladies, not so good for the claustrophobic.

When Seattlest arrived, the Dive was already crowded for opener Black Eyes and Neckties, an appropriately costumed hard-punk outfit. The hyperactive, Seth Rogen-y singer's unintelligible shouting quickly became tiresome and the set--admittedly well-played, if you like jagged walls of noise--more punishing than entertaining.

More agreeable was Sunday Night Blackout, though the rawk outfit veered dangerously close to AC/DC tribute-band territory. (We think they played all original songs; we could be wrong.) The singer's Brian Johnson imitation, surprisingly audible over the pounding percussion and mammoth riffage, had the crowd--surely 100-strong by that point--banging their heads.

Finally, the always cute, always weird (in a good way), always fun girls of The Trucks took the stage. (This night's look: Sparkling unitard for Kristin, sheer shoulders and aqua fishnets for Marissa, black everything for bassist Faith, pretty dress for drummer Lindy. Wacky face paint for all.) After their usual faux-shy waves and demure smiles, the girls busted out a new intro jingle: "Thanks for coming to our show, we hope you have a good time," etc. While prancing and pirouetting and generally looking happy, of course.

Then, there was dancing. Wild and crazy, personal-space-busting, delirious dancing. But, surprisingly, not much else new from The Trucks.

Before we knew it, the band had burned through "Introduction," "Titties," "Zombie" and "Big Afros," and one new, mostly instrumental song. And Kristin was saying they had just "two more songs." Marissa led the sing-along "Pervs in the Bushes," and a short time later they bookended the set with a "we hope you enjoyed our show" outro and were gone. We did enjoy the show, but no encore? Either time flies when you're being pummeled by bouncing ponytails and jabbed by flying elbows, or their set was too short. We say the latter; we were hoping to hear "Messages" and "Why The?" and another new song or two. (We were also hoping to hear Marissa's xylophone; the instrument's mic barely picked it up.)

The Trucks roll back to Seattle for a New Year's Eve show at The Comet--not exactly a larger space, but maybe they'll pepper that setlist with fresh material and stick around a while longer. Either way, it's gonna be another packed dance party.