Friday, January 18, 2013

Ring of Fire

Back in the 90s, one of the bands that caught my attention was Catherine Wheel, a British band that was heavy on the effect-laden guitars; they were considered to be one of the better shoegazer bands of that era. I remember going down to Mississippi Nights at Laclede's Landing on Election night to see them.

Unfortunately, I missed most of their show as I had to work that night, and they switched headlining duties with the other bands (which might have been House of Love and Ocean Colour Scene, or something like that).
Still, I caught enough to see that they were at least as great live as they were on their debut Ferment. Unfortunately, being election night, and maybe since these bands weren't super-big, there just wasn't much of a crowd at that show.

After the show the bands and some of us in attendance went to the bar next door, but it was just kind of a weird, slow night, and probably a bit of a sausage-fest (lack of girls, you know)..

Today I was looking at their bio on Wikipedia and noticed that (supposedly) they named themselves after the firework-in-a-wheel known as a Catherine Wheel. Interesting, I thought, since years before, when my brother and I were little more than toddlers, we had a run-in with one of those. I guess my dad had lit the damn thing after nailing it to a tree, and it came loose, and I swear this thing was chasing after us in the backyard!

It must've been quite a sight.