THANK GOD FOR BILLS SUCH AS these.... Some nights can make you believe in music again. After so many shows, so many CDs, a person can get bogged down by it all, and lately music has been just plain boring to me. The choice between going out to a show and staying home to watch reruns of M*A*S*H has been a fairly easy one to make--Hot Lips has continually won out, and I've been a homebody. But after last Wednesday's show at the Crocodile, I no longer just want to stay home. Pleaseeasaur, Hovercraft, and the Boredoms have saved me.

The last time I witnessed the Boredoms was years ago, at Moe. I had stumbled in without knowing anything about the band and when I left, my mind had been boggled. But that was then. These days the Boredoms have changed. Once a simple, hard-driving punk outfit, they have become a simple-hard-driving-punk-outfit-meets-Spiritualized. From their opening song--a good eight minutes worth of mayhem--the change was in the air and the crowd bellowed and hollered with approval. From that point on, the rest of their set just took off. It was, most surely, a whipped frenzy. They were stunning.

But this, of course, was after Hovercraft had played.

With new film footage and a new opus soundtrack, Hovercraft's shows keep getting better and better. Some people scoff at the group--calling them boring, saying their shows are always the same. But those people are just not paying attention. The key to Hovercraft is math. Every detail, from the exact synchronization, to the flow of film footage, is like one big equation--like trigonometry assaulting your ear drums.

Speaking of assaults on your ear drums... after witnessing opening act Pleaseeasaur, I've decided they are officially the worst band in America. And I love them for it. With bad rhymes, terrible beats, and even worse stage movements, frontman J.P. is either brilliant or retarded (I don't know whether to call him a genius or put corks on the ends of his silverware so he won't accidentally poke his eye out when he eats). If you haven't seen them... well, you've been warned.

Heading home that night, there was a glow around me--the glow of salvation. I am a new man.