Vodka Latka

Show: Vodka Latka at The Independent
Headliner: Golem
Openers: Conspiracy Of Beards, DJ Anaan, Festival of Rights Menorah-Lighting
Location: The Independent in San Francisco, CA
Date: Thursday, December 15, 2006
2006 Show #: 15

Vodka Latka was the second annual festival put on for Hanukkah. We managed to win some free tickets via the Noise Pop mailing list, making the price of the evening right. The evening began with more freebies. Specifically, free latkas (though no free vodka). The latkas were tasty and plentiful for those who arrived early.

One interesting note though was Latka hippy lady. Before the latkas were served, a rail thin looking women came up to us (the group I was with) and started going on and on about how hungry she was and asked whether we thought they'd serve the latkas to us. I tried joking that they wouldn't, but she didn't get it. She then proceeded to walk over to the supplies and proceeded started sticking her hands into things. Until she got swatted away by a staffer. The last I saw of her she was dancing by herself in the middle of the floor between the sets...

DJ Anaan played between sets. There isn't much to say about the DJ. Standard enjoyable choices, but nothing particularly significant.

The festival of rights menorah lighting was interesting. For each candle, a person came up and spoke about their social action initiative and how people could act. Good stuff.

Conspiracy of Beards is about a 30 man acapella group that sings solely the songs of Leonard Cohen. It's an interesting concept. Unfortunately, it just wasn't working that night. I enjoyed that they sang "Everybody Knows" (though I like the Concrete Blonde version best), but that was the first song they did. They didn't hold the audience's attention, which is kind of death for a acappella band.

Golem played about an hour set from 10:35p ish to 11:30p. A very high energy set. Though not as high energy as I'd expected, at least in comparison to Gogol Bordello. There were often times of a more sedate nature. Golem is an eastern European Jewish folk punk band from New York (thus validating the Gogol Bordello comparison). They do put on a good show though. One song, they had 3 professional dancers in the crowd to really get things going at one point. Their attempt to dance the hora resulted in an effective mosh pit. We ended up doing a 1 song encore, but we split between the main set's end and the start of the encore. Overall, a good show. Not worth going too far out of the way for though.