Kidstreet, Bocce (Garrison, Dec 16)

Kidstreet had a small-to-medium sized crowd who stuck around at the Garrison for their night-ending performance, and it was sprinkled with a handful of die-hards, like myself, out for a dance. Off the top they didn’t really allow for this – opening with Song which is understandable but then dropping a new track immediately following. A released tune was next as a warm-up but the slower, new song that came next broke that stride again. Finally things began to roll as they downed Old Mil tallboys on stage and cranked things up with the likes of X (X X), Birthday Boy (aka Wild Child), Penny Candy (still impressive) and Spin Twirl (yay!). They were enticed back out to play an encore but I was so busy dancing I forgot to take note of what song it was. Sign of a show accomplishing its goal! Unfortunately Bocce were just wrapping up as we entered and grabbed our beer. Equally unfortunate was that the three-piece in Young Rival were quite loud but not overly impressive. Their take on Frosty the Snowman didn’t reinvigorate the classic, nor did their take on female-fronted, indie rock. When she dropped the guitar for violin things did improve but I still was not floored.