Well, I drove down to Box Awesome Sunday night to see what the place actually looked like. You’ll see that report in tomorrow’s column, where I essentially reiterate what was written last Friday, but with a little more Technicolor. The whole controversy surrounding Box Awesome doesn’t make a bit of sense to me, and I can’t get anyone other than Jeremy Buckley (the guy at the center of the storm) to talk. Regardless, the fundraiser benefit shows are scheduled, along with a garage sale. Details tomorrow.

When I arrived at Box Awesome, there was a metal show going on upstairs. The door guy let me take a stroll through the club, however, and I was genuinely impressed. It is a cool room, though as I say in the column tomorrow, I don’t understand the stage location. I’m sure there’s a logical reason for it being smack in the middle of the room rather than at one end or the other.

In addition to the fact that I had Monday off (and there was virtually nothing going on in Omaha Sunday night), Sweet Pea was the reason for heading down there. The band has been playing a ton around town, but I’ve never managed to catch their set. Needless to say, I still need to catch them in Omaha because the Box Awesome basement is rather… rustic. It’s PA is a few steps below O’Leaver’s, and the acoustics of a concrete bunker leaves a lot to be desired. Still, even in such un-acoustic-friendly conditions, Sweet Pea was a lot of fun. The four-piece is anchored by a lead guitarist/vocalist frontman and a female keyboard player/vocalist. There music resides somewhere between K Records twee pop, Belle and Sebastian, The Pixies, and new-indie dance acts like Cut Off Your Hands, The Pains of the Pure at Heart and Tokyo Police Club. The funny thing about keyboardist Annie Dilocker is that unlike a lot of women in local indie-rock bands, she can actually sing, though her voice was lost in the basement rattle. Toward the end of their set, the room had become so hot (as in muggy, since there’s no circulation in the room) that the band asked that the lights to bet turned off, and they were, leaving them to perform in the unlit cave. A small gaggle of young women up near the non-existent stage danced in the dark. Check out the blurry action photo.

Sweet Pea is headlining a show at Slowdown Jr. June 19 with Boy Noises, AM Revival and In the Spring. Ironically that’s also the first night of the Lincoln Invasion festival in Benson.

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