The Shot
Tues July 2 at Re-bar.

Seattle's pretty spread out, but there are times when this city feels smaller than Tuesday-night opening-act audiences. You think you're stepping out into a random situation, and inevitably there's a half-degree of separation between you and these strangers. This week, I headed to the Re-bar, and the opening band for the night, the Shot, told me that they played on the same bill as From the Icy Coast the week that I reviewed the band for my column (I missed the Shot that night, though).

The interconnectedness doesn't just end with who knows/played with whom, it also becomes who sounds like whom. As much as I've tried, when I do this column I can't seem to get away from bands who sound like what was popular in Seattle in the mid '90s. Except this time, instead of Alice in Chains or Soundgarden offspring, the Shot came off more influenced by Nirvana--for the first half of their set, at least. The three-piece (Mamali on guitar, Bowie on bass, and Moore on drums--no last names) sounded like a more timid Bleach-worshipping bunch, with Mamali working up his best, evil-sounding vocals and letting his long hair cover his face as he worked his guitar.

Their dark, grungy rock felt scaled back compared to their predecessors, though, and other than the drummer, the band was planted pretty still. I wanted a little more insanity in their set. When they said they were playing a cover, I half expected them to pay tribute to the Wipers, but instead we got the Beatles, one of the less interesting parts of the set, along with the slower, melody-driven tracks that followed. As my friend Kamala put it, though, the Shot were definitely heading in the right direction, thanks to their complete lack of pretense. They had an aura of what she called "genuinity," and that, mixed with a little more fire in their guts, could be a good start.