The Inbreds at Santa Cruz

Seminal indie rock duo The Inbreds reunited for a one-off show at Lee's Palace on friday as one of the acts at Santa Cruz. Everyone was very excited to be there and gushing with nostalgia for the band. It was like a highschool reunion, except without any awkward small talk or ex-crushes (ex-girl or boyfriends to the rest of you) lurking about.

The audience erupted into ear-splitting hollaring and applause as Mike O'Neil walked out on stage with his bass and Dave Ullrich came out and sat behind his drums. The cheering continued for a few moments as though calling for an encore and in a way it was an encore. I wasn't the only one in the audience who had missed out on seeing them play live during their hayday, and as Dave mentioned at one point, they never really had a proper goodbye show.

It was a fun show, with a great, fun energy. The Inbreds played most of their better known songs near the start of the set, which worked the crowd into a bit of a frenzy. "Any Sense of Time" and "You Will Know" made the audience giddy with delight, but it was "Prince", the song about a dog, a dog on wheels, that got the greatest reaction.

Between songs Dave would mention some anecdote as if doing a DVD commentary track, and joked that Mike had flown into town from Halifax on JetsGo. They were pretty tight, but after a while it became apparent to me why I never bothered to buy any of their albums; the super-basic combo of bass guitar and drums eventually showed its limits and the songs began to sound too similar.

Still, it was a fun show, and I was glad to have been able to finally see them live. It'd be nice if they recorded some new material, but I don't know how likely that is. Dave probably has his hands full with his new online record label Zunior and Mike has been doing music for cartoons between gigs playing with Sarah Harmer's band plus recording his own solo work.

It's a shame the Inbreds drifted off the map the way they did. With The White Stripes and Death From Above 1979 showing that two-piece rock bands can easily play louder than a five-piece, it would be nice to have someone show the softer side of that combination.

Maybe I'll start buying their records afterall.

How did you like the show? Were you there?