What a selection of booze on display at the Peanut Gallery on Saturday night: two-litre pop bottles with the labels ripped off and a quarter full of sepia-tinted de-carbonated something, 50ml testers of various distinctions, cheap wines (bought), expensive wines (stolen), a dozen different labels of cheap beer (is there not-cheap beer?), a bottle of Malibu (!?), a rag full of ether (in my head), etc. Vancouver continues to excel in the field of diversity.

And it was a bit of a mindshitter of a show, as well. The line-up went Gang Violence, and them some kid called Candles, and then two of the dudes from Basketball calling themselves Balls and performing what I gather may have been their first show or their last show or their only show ever, and then No Gold. But I didn't even know that there was going to be another band after Balls and I was halfway to a psychotic episode induced by a combination of the previous night's zero sleep and the unstoppable gum-flapping of some girl from school who I had somehow previously taken to be 'shy' but who turned out to be 'insane', so I left before No Gold played. I'm sure they ruled and all, but on certain nights there's only so much 'insanity' one can subject themselves to before running cockeyed to the next menage.

Gang Violence are maybe the most exciting band in Vancouver, but are unquestioningly the most exciting and the most promising new band. The addition of Sarah Cordingley couldn't really have worked out better; she's fun to watch, she's got the both the chops and the confidence to stay on top of whatever guitarsynth insanity Rob Andow is slashing into, and her presence up front seemingly allows that insanity to be conjured up under less scrutiny/free-er-ly. It was the sort of thing that made me happy, until the wildeyed steakneck on too many E's decided to start grinding my leg in order to incite me into starting a fight with him. (What suburban rock did all those sadistic jocks crawl out from under on Saturday, by the way? Is this happening because so many 'normal' girls are into American Apparel and Justice but still think it's a good idea to bring out their socially underdeveloped, mentally incompetent, and penially deficient boyfriends? I hate it.)

And then this Candles dude 'played'. You know, on principle I should be have some sort of problem with someone being billed as a performer and coming on after a good show by a talented band only to sort-of sing karaoke while pulling mellow rap moves, but Candles (I even feel retarded referring to him by his moniker) had the crowd going batshit while doing just those things. He crowd surfed through the first two songs, strictly sang jams, and seemed totally nonplussed by the complete retardedness of the whole situation. The word "amazing" escaped my lips at least twice.

As it did at least that many times again during Balls' set. I fucked up and never saw Basketball while they were still together so forgive me if this is old hat, but the whole tribal drum circle awash in throbbing synth loops with the lights off and sweat dripping off the roof thing that I witnessed with blurring eyes and swimming mind seemed like some sort of epoch. If they could figure out a way to bottle that shit like some Michael Jordan cologne and package it with good MDMA I could promise you that I would be showing up at all foreseeable special occasions smelling and feeling like a fresh dose of The Best Night Ever.

As for NG, could qualified commenters please ably, originally, and professionally summarize said performance below? First prize is a glamourous internship with this publication. Good luck.