Samiam at The Handlebar
This post is part diary, part show review, because it was essentially a series of life events that led to my attendance at this show—and yes, I realize one could argue that the only reason we do anything is because a series of life events have led us there, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and I am choosing to draw it right here (you can’t see me, but I am gesturing to this spot right here: the place I’m drawing the line).
Samiam on stage at The Handlebar. Photo by @deedeekohl.
The time: yesterday, May 18th, 2023, at about 2:30 PM. The place: Jitterbug Coffee in Pensacola, Florida. I always (the month and a half I’ve lived here) thought the name “Jitterbug Coffee” sounded pretty ridiculous—it has an overused ring to it, but I’ve never been to or heard of another coffee shop with the same name—regardless, it is very likely the nicest coffee shop in town. The place is reminiscent of a Portland or Seattle coffee shop, but it’s missing something, namely a clearly marked bussing station (among other things, I’m sure—it was my second time there, okay? Give me a break). They are just trying too hard. But even those Northwest coffee shops aren’t what they used to be.
I digress—I’m being too hard on Jitterbug Coffee. It’s a great place to sit and do some work for a few hours (even if the wifi doesn’t quite work) and it shares a space with one of two record stores in town, Revolver Records. They offer almost only new records, and you won’t find a bargain there, but they do have a decent selection.
If you think I’m being really critical, you’d be right. The idea is: I have an opinion. Maybe now you’ll listen to what I have to say about this show I went to.
I was at Jitterbug Coffee on a Thursday afternoon in an attempt to keep my mind busy, and to continue working on a profile piece I’ve been writing. As I stood by the counter, waiting to order my 16oz iced chai tea latte with oat milk (sure to fuel my creative drive), my attention was drawn to the shop owner at Revolver Records, clearly hard at work re-alphabetizing, or restocking, or admiring his inventory, or whatever it is that record store owners do. As I stared at him, quite conspicuously I might add, I noticed a flyer on the wall behind him—the date in particular had caught my eye (the date was that very day, as you might have guessed). My schedule was completely open, and it isn’t every day that plans to attend a show come about so organically, so I decided I would go. I had not heard of Samiam (pronounced “Sam I am,” like Dr. Seuss) or either of the openers, The Glorious Flaws and Phantom Limb, but it looked to be a fun adventure.
I called up my only friend in the area, who was psyched to attend a punk show in America’s armpit, and who later cancelled at the last minute in typical armpit fashion. After I had made some solid progress on my piece at the coffee shop, I drove home (driving is an unfortunate necessity when you live amongst the sweat and scraggly hairs of northwestern Florida, where everything is far apart and the sidewalks are in varying states of disrepair), ate dinner in front of the TV, changed into the fanciest outfit I’ve worn in a long long time, and at sunset, walked (yes, walked! I know what I said earlier) 20 humid minutes to The Handlebar, possibly Pensacola’s only dedicated alternative venue.
I arrived at about 7:40 PM—well after what I thought was showtime—but I ended up being 20 minutes early, which was consequently when I decided to write a review, as my timeliness meant I would be seeing the whole show. I bought a $25 ticket at the door (not the cheapest small show I’ve ever attended) and went straight to the bar, where I ordered my usual rum and coke, which didn’t sit well in my full stomach. But for about $5.50 before tax, it was a welcome change from the $8-$12 basic mixed drinks of Southern California. One rum and coke with well rum at a shitty hotel venue in Hollywood set me back $21 (I’m talking about you, Hotel Ziggy), but here in Florida, you can get a whole lot drunker for a whole lot less.
The Handlebar is a classed-up, seemingly well-funded, small music venue with the capacity for 160 people. The unisex bathrooms were shockingly well maintained, stocked with free condoms and tampons, and an assortment of flyers for shows at other venues in the area, which were placed thoughtfully on the countertop, getting progressively damper as the night’s wet hands hovered from the automatic sink to the adjacent stack of paper towels over and over again. This was likely the nicest bathroom I have ever used at a concert venue. Thanks, Handlebar!
Inside the main section of the venue—you know, the place with the bar, the floor, and the stage—movies played on three large TV screens spread throughout the space. Logged in to HBO as “Handletits,” the staff played The Grand Budapest Hotel, followed by Fantastic Mr. Fox. Of course, the movies had no audio, but it somehow worked with the ambience, and I suppose I appreciated it more than watching advertisements for future shows on a loop. I might have preferred one to the other, but I found the TVs to be ultimately unnecessary, and borderline insulting to the bands that were playing—almost as if to suggest the acts were not enough entertainment on their own (foreshadowing, no doubt).
The mean age among attendees at The Handlebar last night was a safe 45 years old. I find it difficult to enjoy a show at which I feel out of place, and the quickest way to such an incongruous feeling is to be one of the only audience members under the age of 30. Nevertheless, I kept an open mind, just as I did when I saw Starcrawler in San Diego, and was shocked to be one of very few attendees who could actually warrant being carded (and I have a mustache).
Armed with a forced objectiveness, I was not completely disappointed by this show. Phantom Limb (no doubt taken from the Shins song of the same name), proudly from both Atlanta and Birmingham, took the stage on time, at which moment the bassist removed his shoes and socks. I’ll say it right now: it was difficult to enjoy the show with his curled toes flailing about for the duration of the band’s performance. No phantom limbs on this guy. If the shoeless, sockless, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing ponytail man was any indication, Phantom Limb was exactly what you might expect from the first of two opening bands at a 160 cap concert venue on a Thursday night in Pensacola, Florida. Make what inferences you will from that statement, but to their impressive credit, they showed up early and prepared, they played well and they played together, and they probably gave a more impassioned performance (relative to their experience level) than either underground punk vets who followed them.
In some cases, “underground” is just a nice way of saying, “mediocre talent,” and this is one of those cases. Sometimes, you haven’t heard of a band because you have yet to expand your interests and capacity for discovery, and sometimes you haven’t heard of a band because they aren’t anything special. The latter was The Glorious Flaws to me. From what little information I could glean from their Facebook page, they are a local band, and they appear to have been around for a while. They are also very engaged with and appreciative of their niche, dedicated fanbase, a necessity that smaller acts have no business disregarding. Performance aside, The Glorious Flaws were kind to their audience, and created a loud, energetic environment on stage, and what more could you ask for from an opening band? Bonus points for bringing their own banner—this band is 100% a passion project, and I respect the hell out of that.
As for the performance, I had not done much research prior to attending this show, and I spent most of their set in the adjacent courtyard, writing the first part of this review, but I heard everything from start to finish, and caught their last two songs inside. I experienced more than enough to conclude that they are a technically good band who would be perfect for providing background music at a public event, or perhaps at a skatepark show (which they have scheduled for June 10th). But sonically, The Glorious Flaws—and Samiam for that matter—just blend in with every other average punk band out there, and I am using the term, “punk,” in the vaguest sense, much like the label, “rock,” is used today as an umbrella term to refer to essentially any music that isn’t Rap, Jazz, or Classical.
There exists today a brand of music that represents the product of punk’s mainstream success—fast and repetitive, with lyrics that lack substance or feeling. I am by no means a punk-rock purist or a pretentious asshole (or perhaps that is for you to decide), nor do I care what music anyone makes. We all have our own tastes, and that is what makes the diversity of music so wonderful. After all, there is very obviously a large fanbase for this watered down and generic vein of music, and I am glad there is—it provides a safe environment for the senior community. That was a joke, but you get the idea—the people at this show were very old, probably because Samiam has been active since 1988.
A brief history lesson: having formed in the late 1980s in Berkeley, California, they would have been right alongside bands like Greenday and Bad Religion in the punk revival of the early 1990s. Samiam has also played with other mainstream punk legends like The Offspring, NOFX, and Blink-182. They are certainly not a band who should be tossed aside and disregarded as manufactured punk garbage—they have real roots—but there is a reason why some of their counterparts—born in the very same environment at the very same time—saw such massive success, and regularly sell out arenas when they tour today, and why Samiam is playing to less than 160 people on a Thursday night in Pensacola, Florida.
Their performance was not memorable, but it was very polished, and it felt tight, as you might expect from a band that has been playing together for so long. I recognized one of their guitarists from the courtyard earlier, where he was copying down a setlist, while a very enthusiastic couple chatted his ear off about who-knows-what for the better part of an hour—sure to be a well-rehearsed story for the whole family next Thanksgiving. I also took note of the bassist’s t-shirt, which displayed the logo for the band Wipers. The only thing I know about Wipers is what I read in Mark Lanegan’s memoir, about how their singer, Greg Sage, was kind of a perv.
But enough has been said about my thoughts on their performance—it was decent and well rehearsed. But when a band reaches a certain age and level of experience, it naturally becomes increasingly more difficult to resist going through the motions when they perform, a phenomenon I believe Samiam have been struggling with for a long time. And that is one glorious flaw.
If it wasn’t for the old dude who took a photographer down with him as he plummeted to the floor before the openers even went on, or the guy in front of me, violently slapping his wife’s ass through much of the performance, the experience just would not have been the same. I am sure the show would have been well worth the cover charge to many diehard punk history buffs, but it was also worth it to people like me, who simply had nothing else to do last night. By the encore, many concertgoers had filtered out, but it was probably past their bedtimes anyway.