International Pop Overthrow at City Hall

• Okay, here's where I make my wee bit of criticism on this... Sure, City Hall is spacious and easy to get to, but it is absolutely not the place where folks going out to see the bands playing this event associate with going to see local indie music, or pretty much any live music. It's not a venue that's on anyone's radar, so people figuring out what to do this weekend, who would generally look at the schedules of the clubs they usually frequent aren't looking to see what's going on at City Hall. And, while there are some very good bands playing the event, most of the bands playing last night don't exactly generally have sizable fanbases or hype that would show up as a matter of course. Hopefully, the crowd is more sizable tonight, but I won't be surprised if it's still on the smallish side. As for promo, I started getting facebook invites from a couple of the bands at least a couple of weeks ago...I don't really think this has been poorly promoted, but perhaps somewhat less than optimally planned.

• Very poorly promoted? There are IPO posters plastered all over the city. Literally every single street corner. Walk from downtown to City Hall and you will no joke see over 100 of them. But, if this was their only promo outlet, they may have missed some markets.

• I feel so bad for the acts that played Thursday night, some really great work by excellent bands and about 25 people in attendance. Very poorly promoted event, which is a shame for these great performers, they deserved better from the show producers. The City Hall venue is spacious and nice, easy to get to via the 0 and 15 bus lines, and admission is cheap. Worth your time.

• Looking forward, but taking some issue with tonight's lineup description as "garage-ish". Tonight's opener The Mumbles is really more from the XTC school of pop. I'd consider Fingers of the Sun more of a sunshine pop sorta band, with a twinge of psych pop. Melissa Ivey's definitely not garage rock, and Jim McTurnan and TKTKTM aren't really garagey, either. It's going to be a very good show.

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