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By Elaine Corden
Staff Writer
Photos by Sprout

When it comes to intellectual music, there is a decidedly fine line betwixt a challenge and out and out irritation. Unclean Weiner, Jack Tripper and a host of other 'concept' bands, reminded a packed house what a treat unconventionality can be when it is stripped of pretension.

Dubbed 'A Peculiar Evening at the Theatre', Saturday night saw the cheap-flick Ridge Theatre turned into a multi-media experiment in texture and form. Led by Yellowboy, aka David Younge, the musicians-cum-artists presented work in true Dadaist style, challenging traditional notions of what is and isn't music.

The Merkins and MexicanCarpetSalesmen, took a rather serious tone, creating sonic, bleak sounds against a looped test pattern on the theatre's screen, while Jack Tripper showcased their usual- unusual, featuring disjointed voices and eerie soundscaping. All this without a trace of self-parody or irony.

The most enjoyable performance in the evening came from Unclean Weiner, who managed to be at once insightful and self-conscious, dead serious and dead funny. While the three piece's performance did see a fair share of patience-testing knob twiddling, it was fresh, contemporary and culturally aware. Against a backdrop of made-for-Hollywood epic video (see Russell Crowe's Gladiator), Unclean Weiner did a parody of Broadway tubthumpers, Stomp that brought the audience to near hysterics.

While certainly not for everyone, 'A Peculiar Evening at the Theatre' lived up to it's name in every sense of the word.

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