It starts tonight when Lincoln invades Omaha with The Killigans, Floating Opera, Tangelo, and Icarian Bird all on one bill for $5. It’s part of starcityscene.com‘s Scenefest 3. Tomorrow night it’s back to the basics, with The Third Men (ex-Sons of…), Left is West (Des Moines) and Mal Madrigal. Both shows are at O’Leaver’s. And that’s about it for the weekend. Note to O’Leaver’s management — update your friggin’ online calendar!

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Column 23: Crouching Bono, Hidden User Fees
For most, the Qwest Center’s dream is still out of reach.

What are you doing Dec. 15?

I know what I won’t be doing. I didn’t get tickets to the U2 concert.

I know what you’re thinking: Surely, a rock music lover such as myself — a critic no less — with the obvious means generated from money earned by slaving over deadlines at The Reader shoulda/woulda/coulda glommed onto a pair of highly coveted floor seats located only a few rows from where a glistening Bono and The Edge will be showering sweat onto adoring fans who will rub the golden liquid into their skins in hopes that it will somehow merge with their very essence — an unholy baptism into the church or rock and roll. Perhaps the fine folks at the Qwest Center, acknowledging my obvious importance as a local music scribe, slipped me a pair of laminated backstage passes so I could really “get to know” the band and share my eye-opening life-changing experiences with you, the reader.

But no. No tickets to the concert do I have. The day they were offered via a lottery system at the Qwest box office and online via Ticketbastard I was busy doing other things. It dawned on me later that morning that tickets had gone on sale only a couple hours earlier, but I knew it was too late, that the damn thing was going to sell out in minutes, which it did.

And you know what, I didn’t care. It’s not that I’m not a U2 fan. I practically wore the groove flat on my copy of Under a Blood Red Sky back in the ’80s, back when U2 was still the angry young men from Ireland with ‘a message.” I stuck with them through their mainstream high-water mark of The Joshua Tree all the way through their inevitable mainstream downfall with ’97’s Pop.

Then I forgot about them, even though they came back with a vengeance with ’00’s All That You Can Leave Behind. By then, U2’s music had become television commercial fodder, the perfect vehicle for selling product across X and Y generations. That idea would reach a zenith last year when their single, “Vertigo,” became better known as “that song from the Apple commercial.”

The irony is that just about everyone I know who’s involved in the local music scene isn’t going, either. They couldn’t afford it or weren’t “lucky” enough to snag a pair or simply weren’t interested.

Meanwhile, folks who haven’t been to a rock concert in years, who turned off music long ago for talk radio, whose only reference to Bright Eyes comes from “The Planet of the Apes,” were crowing with great hubris over their good fortune. Their tales of ticket acquisition were burnished with pride — how they waited in line for hours to land a lucky lottery number. How they concocted an arcane system involving five different networked computers laser-pointed at ticketmaster.com. How they knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who got them front-row balcony seats at face value. Oh yeah, they were going to U2 all right.

And it’s not too late for you, too. E-bay’s got a set of four center stage seats available right now for a buy-now price of only $1,999. Go get ’em, tiger.

Just as that U2 dust settled, along comes the next “big show” — Paul McCartney, arguably the least talented and certainly least interesting of the Fab Four, will be dragging his badly dyed hair to the Qwest Center Oct. 30. Tickets went on sale Monday, and reportedly sold out in 14 minutes. Something tells me the lucky ticket holders will be the same people who will be watching Bono do his Vegas schtick this winter.

So two years after its completion, the dream of the Qwest Center has become a reality, at least for those wealthy enough — or lucky enough — to get tickets. For the rest of us, well, there’s always Sokol Underground. And to be honest with you, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be on Dec. 15.

You got to hand it to Trail of Dead. Last time they were through they drew fewer than 300 downstairs at Sokol Underground. Last night they drew around 700 upstairs, evidence that they’ve crossed that imaginary line that divides the men from the boys on the indie circuit. The tour buses parked on the south side of the building was more evidence. Somehow throughout their rise, I’ve managed to completely miss this band.

I made an effort to get there early, but still missed the opening band. Not Criteria, but a fourth band that was comprised of some Trail of Dead people and roadies doing acoustic numbers, or so I was told by one of the merch people. It must have been a quick set, because Criteria was on stage by about a quarter to nine. In all honestly, they were the reason I came out last night, hoping to hear some of the new songs off their upcoming Saddle Creek release, which Steve Pedersen announced from the stage has a scheduled street date of Aug. 23.

And play new stuff they did. Though in some ways distinctly different than the old material, fans of the band’s debut, En garde, will dig it. The new stuff feels heavier, with thicker melodies and counters. Still, the basic recipe remains the same — intricate, chugging 5-count riffs repeated in 6/8 or some other triplet meter (count 1-2-3-1-2 / 1-2-3-1-2 over and over). It’s these rolling waltz counter lines — that feel like being on a boat on a rough, wavy sea — that differentiate Criteria from the other angular punk outfits. That and Pedersen’s clear, throaty caterwaul — vocals that sound like no on one else on the radio, reaching what seems to be an octave above the guitar lines. Pedersen pushes his vocals on every song, his face contorted and red. I don’t know how he’s going to pull it off night after night over the course of three months or more. I hope to god he’s had vocal training to deal with the strain.

The fact that Pedersen’s law career kept him off the road when En garde was released gives the band an interesting advantage. The new material while different isn’t a great stylistic leap from the old material. It all blends together rather seamlessly. Hence the band will be able to effectively tour as if they released two CDs simultaneously, in many ways more effectively than Bright Eyes can tour its two CDs. I’m assuming that Creek will rerelease En garde along with the new one. Ka-ching!

Regardless of being their first live performance in a lot of months, it was one of the better Criteria sets I’ve heard. They took full advantage of the huge sound system. And you know what? That AJ Mogis just sounds better and better on vocals. He’s becoming a regular Michael Anthony up there. I thought the mix was too bassy, but that’s quibbling. It’ll be interesting to see how it all sounds down in the Underground May 21.

Next up was Austin band The Sword playing run-of-the-mill Bevis and Butthead-style bass-heavy metal. It sounded like something from the ’80s without the high-end opera vocals. Instead, the vocalist flatly moped though his uninteresting melodies while everyone else did their best Steel Dragon moves. Why is this band touring with Trail of Dead?

Then after about a half-hour break, which included 10 minutes of stage smoke and Styx singing “Mr. Roboto,” on rolled Trail of Dead — a six-piece rock band featuring keyboards, two drum sets (though I only saw them played at the same time once) and that weird, pudgy looking lead vocalist. Maybe it’s because I haven’t followed this band from the beginning, but I just wasn’t feeling it last night. At times their music held a sense of drama, but it wasn’t enough to keep my attention, and I left after six songs. Maybe it got better. Anyone who hung around, feel free to post a review and tell me what a lunk-head I was to leave early. The crowd seemed to love ’em (but then again, they seemed to love The Sword as well).

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Never underestimate the power of a good band name… or a bad one. I honestly believe about half of this band’s fanbase was derived from its name alone. …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead — or simply Trail of Dead — sounds bad-ass right out of the box. It sounds cool when you say it: “Dude, you going to Trail of Dead tonight?” Sounds like you’re going to see a death metal band instead of, well, an indie jangle-pop band. Their T-shirt sales must be massive.

I’ll probably go to Trail of Dead tonight. My main motivation is seeing opening band Criteria, who are bound to unveil some of the new material from their soon-to-be released Saddle Creek CD. Don’t know if they’re playing before or after The Sword (probably before), so I recommend you get their early. Show starts at 8 and tix are $15. I’m surprised it isn’t sold out yet, quite frankly.

If you don’t feel like venturing downtown, mathy art-noise power trio Fromanhole is playing at O’Leavers’ tonight after a somewhat lengthy hiatus. Also on the bill is St. Paul’s V9R9D and local band Life After Lazer Disc.

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Hella is the Sacramento duo of guitarist Spencer Seim and drummer Zach Hill. What? Another guitar-and-drum outfit like The White Stripes or The Black Keys? Not quite. Hella’s just-released 2-CD package on Suicide Squeeze splits the writing chores in half, with Hill responsible for the Church Gone Wild disc and Seim responsible for Chirpin Hard. Add it up and it’s almost two hours of jittery, hard-to-decipher prog noise. How they’ll pull it off live is anyone’s guess. -TSM

How did I manage to make a choice among the three shows going on last night — The Stay Awake at The Niner, Aqueduct/Golden Republic at O’Leaver’s and M. Ward at Sokol Underground?

The Niner was immediately disqualified because, well, it’s the Niner. Bad sound and nowhere to sit on a typical Saturday (the only night they have live music) makes for no fun. And it’s always more fun to be at a venue where you know someone there, and I don’t. Looks like I’ll have to wait to see The Stay Awake, again. I was told that M. Ward had sold 200 advanced tickets, which means it probably was sold out. Sokol Underground on a sold-out evening can be a blast if the act is high-energy. M.Ward is anything but. I’ve seen him a couple times before and wasn’t in the mood for a night of solo acoustic confessionals (which is a nice way of saying I think he’s boring live). I wouldn’t be surprised if his buddy Oberst took the stage for a guest vocal. If anyone was there, please let us know how it went.

So the decision was actually pretty easy. O’Leaver’s bands at least played upbeat rock. When I arrived at around 11 I ran into about a half-dozen people, all of whom asked why I wasn’t down at The Underground. Seems the 70 paid had the same idea as me. Last night’s show was the last on the Aqueduct/Golden Republic tour, with the bands returning to Denver and Lawrence respectively afterward. It made for a nice bon voyage, and probably explained the somewhat sloppy, if not happy-go-lucky, performances. Aqueduct was more laid back than when they opened for United State of Electronica a few months ago. Upbeat and tuneful, they played somewhat standard indie rock fare. The crowd favorites, unfortunately, were covers of Geto Boys’ “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” — lots of drunk people with their fists in the air.

This was my first exposure to Golden Republic, and they came off as sort of a poor man’s Spoon, which is probably exactly what they weren’t going for. Lead singer Ben Grimes vocally does a spot-on Britt Daniel, and some of the songs even had Spoon-like “ewws.” Dance-y indie rock appears to be in vogue these days. Their best song was the set closer highlighted by a long repeated riff, one of the few times I got into what they were doing.

Tonight is Q & Not U and The Apes at Sokol Underground. If I get my column written, I might drop in.

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Lotsa shows this weekend, mostly at Sokol Underground. Tonight it’s a hip-hop offering with Atmosphere, Grayskul and P.O.S. — Atmosphere, I’m told, is at the epicenter of the underground hip-hop movement, part of the Rhymesayers Entertainment crew. Personal critical mentor Robert Christgau gave their just released Headshots: Se7en a “B Plus,” saying “Slug is so excited to discover how much rhyme he has in him that his creative optimism revs Ant’s subtle tracks. He’s not inventing alt-rap. But he might as well be.” $15, 9 p.m.

If you’re in Lincoln, Scenefest 3 is going on at Duffy’s featuring For Against — that band alone is worth the drive down.

Not such an easy decision tomorrow night with three quality shows worth checking out. The top of the list is M. Ward at Sokol Underground with DeVotchKa and Norfolk & Western. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some “special guests” showing up for this one. $10, 9 p.m. Meanwhile at O’Leaver’s, Kansas City’s The Golden Republic is playing with Aqueduct, who were just here with United State of Electronica last month. More people danced for USE, but Aqueduct was the better band (see review). $5, 9:30 (cheap!). Then there’s the sleeper show: The Coast of Nebraska and The Stay Awake at The 49’r. The Stay Awake, featuring renowned musician/soundman Steve Micek (Mariannes), has been rather elusive throughout its career, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something weird happens and this show gets canceled or moved or something. SomedayNever says this show is $3 and will get going around 9:30 (I doubt it, try 10:30).

Oh yeah, for all you tree-huggers out there, Earth Day festivities are going on noon to 6 in Elmwood, with Anchondo, Anonymous Americans (sic), Michael Murphy, Nifty 250, and Surcos slated to perform. Pick up a free tree while you’re there.

Sunday is Q and Not U, The Apes, Food For Animals, & Manhunter at Sokol Underground. I originally wanted to write a feature on The Apes for The Reader but they nixed it. The Apes are a D.C. garage punk band that toured with The Liars back when The Liars were good. They recorded a couple CDs on Frenchkiss before moving to Birdman. $8, 9 p.m.

Those of you who don’t read the Omaha World-Herald every morning may not know that Saddle Creek announced that it’s looking to build Slowdown — their bar/music hall/office megaplex — downtown as part of the so-called north-downtown development project. The article (you have to register to read it) doesn’t give hardly any details that we didn’t already know. Creek manager Jason Kulbel acknowledged that he was excited by the “possibility” of being part of the revitalization project, and the article said that if “all goes as planned, Slowdown could be open sometime in 2006.” Then Kulbel added, “It’s not a done deal by any means.”

The north downtown location has been rumored practically since the day after the Metcalf Park neighborhood association ran the Creek crew out of their neighborhood. One rumor had it being located near 14th and Webster on a piece of land that’s dissected by a rail spur. A more recent rumor has it located further west, near 19th and Cuming. My guess is no location has been set in stone and that the City just wants some sort of commitment from Creek, and are willing to give away land to get it. The whole downtown development project, unveiled earlier this week, seems pretty iffy to me — especially the new baseball stadium, which would leave a lot of people scratching their heads over why we’re keeping the mammoth Rosenblatt Stadium empty 48 weeks out of the year…

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Column 22: Deja Vu All Over Again
Last Saturday’s show at The Brothers turned back the clock, for one night.

Before I get to the review of last week’s historic show at The Brother’s, let me stress that it’s impossible to underestimate the impact that Linoma bands Frontier Trust and Mercy Rule have had on today’s Nebraska indie music scene.

Those of you who weren’t around in the mid-’90s or weren’t paying attention probably will never understand this. Along with bands like Mousetrap, Simon Joyner and Ritual Device, Mercy Rule and Frontier Trust were doing the impossible — they were making music in their own unique voice and performing it all over the country. The idea that you could be in a band that wasn’t aping the current radio trend and be successful was revolutionary. These bands have been sited countless times by the Saddle Creek Records artists as not only influential, but inspirational.

I always thought both Mercy Rule and Frontier Trust could make it to the next level, but especially Mercy Rule. The trio’s music combined Jon Taylor’s guitar angst with Ron Albertson’s hard-fisted drumming and offset it with Heidi Ore’s throaty, girlie voice singing lyrics that were personal but not confessional. Their songs were anthems to individuality — love songs with hope that any schmuck could understand and identify with, but without a sticky layer of sentimentality or treacle. The fact that national label Relativity screwed them didn’t stop Mercy Rule from putting out a career-topping LP, The Flat Black Chronicles, on Lincoln’s Caulfield Records. After that they could move on, comforted by the fact that they created a masterwork that stands as an icon to late-’90s Nebraska music.

I saw a lot of familiar faces from the past that night at The Brothers, all looking a little older, a little wiser, and a little heavier. Frontier Trust was really Half Trust, featuring only frontman Gary Dean Davis and guitarist Bill Thornton. No bass player, and drummer Double Joe Kobjerowski shacked up somewhere in Portland (though he apparently called in and heard part of the set via a held-up cell phone).

Gary didn’t sound or look any different than he did a decade ago — he still has that same off-pitch bellow which he yells into a microphone gripped like he’s strangling a bunny, screaming right in its frightened, furry face stories about politics, unemployment, girls, swimming holes and race cars. A shaggy Thornton hadn’t changed much either, sporting the same walkabout stroll as he peddled his ax with a smile.

Mercy Rule didn’t get on stage until 12:30, probably because they had to set up their infamous floor lights. For this gig, it was only Heidi and Jon. As Heidi explained, “Ron is in New York, where he’s making money, has a girlfriend and has a band.” That was met with plenty of whoops and laughter. The time machine has been good to Heidi and Jon. Heidi looks like she just walked off the stage at Hairy Mary’s circa 1994; Jon’s put on a few pounds but carries it like a rugged farm dad in a crewcut and nerd glasses. Heidi never sounded better, and Jon was in his usual maniacal form, his guitar slung to his knees, bent over, chopping like a steam locomotive pushrod in full throttle.

Seeing them on stage again was a thrill for everyone there. Oh sure, it was great to see Gary and Bill playing the old favorites, but Mercy Rule… well, it may never happen again.

Their set lasted well past closing time, and before everyone left, Gary hustled as many copies of the new split as he could (It’s also available at The Antiquarium, Drastic Plastic and probably Homer’s). The Frontier Trust song, “Arlington,” is vintage tractor punk, while Mercy Rule’s single, “Don’t Let It Go,” is a treasure — among the better songs from their oeuvre, pure pop-punk with huge, chiming guitars, a great mid-song break featuring Jon and Ron, and Heidi belting out the line “Never let it walk out the door / Never let it leave your life.” A fitting message for what will likely be the last song they’ll ever release.

A couple wee shows tonight. The Locust brings the noise to Sokol Underground tonight with Lincoln phenom The Show Is the Rainbow and Luminoso Lashikar. That show’s $8 and starts at 9. Meanwhile, Mars Black is playing a tune-up show in prep for his upcoming opening slot on the Bright Eyes/Faint tour. Also on the bill: Jamaaz, Breathless, Surreal, Buck Bowen and Humanity’s Last at the soon-to-be-closed Ranch Bowl. $6′ 8:30. That’s all for now…

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No feature tomorrow, and this week’s column will be a rehash of The Brothers’ show review I posted Sunday. And it also looks like a quiet week for shows, which means I’ll be focusing on CD reviews for the rest of the week. Anyway, here’s some Internet stuff for your perusal:

— I just discovered a rather negative review of Todd Grant’s Duffy’s show earlier this month (read it here). Looks like our friends at the Daily Nebraskan aren’t fans.

— Glancing at the SLAMOmaha calendar, looks like the folks in Shelterbelt are on a tour of some of the hardest hardcore polka cities in the country — Ames tonight, Cedar Falls tomorrow, Waukesha and Madison Thursday, Oshkosh Friday, Green Bay Saturday, Des Moines Sunday. Grab a brat for me, boys.

— They’re loving ol’ Conor down under. Here’s a review of the April 5 Prince of Wales show. “We love you Conor!”

— Pitchfork dismembered the new Mars Black CD, giving it a 2.5 out of 10 (here). Ouch.

— And critical mentor Robert Christgau’s latest Consumer Guide went online at the Village Voice (here). He can’t get enough of those Rhymesayers artists.

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