Pierced Arrows at hi-dive, 4/21/12
Supermodified is a five piece who have been in various bands around Denver over the years, including Dan Merrick formerly of the Speedholes on bass and backing vocals. The singer looked like a former radio jock/karate instructor but that worked in his favor because he moved like a maniac throughout the show and showing more spirit than guys half his age. 
Tom Murphy Supermodified at Hi-Dive
He definitely had the combination of Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler dance moves thing going on which is just as well because these guys started off with a cover of a kind of obscure Aerosmith song, "I Wanna Know Why." But apparently this was a cover band but the kind where the performance more than makes up for the fact that these guys didn't write the songs. They played the material like they owned it.
These guys also picked other less well-known songs like "Heaven and Hell" by The Who. At one point the singer took off his shirt and threw it to the drummer, who had already taken off his own with a, "Have a shirt AJ." The band's set closed with a high-energy cover of the Strangers' "Something Better Change."
Speaking of cover bands who seem to imbue the material with new life, Buckingham Squares followed Supermodified. Except rather than mostly '70s rock, the Squares dig back to the '60s and the Nuggets-era of bands. 
Tom Murphy The Buckingham Squares
They way these guys have always shown so much confidence in the music, you'd think they wrote it. This show made it even more obvious how Matt Bischoff has been able to combine rhythms and leads as the sole guitarist in the band in the way that those great guitarists out of the Pacific Northwest in the '60s used to be able to pull off.
But there were no less than excellent performances by the band and it finished its set with an interesting and fairly obscure choice of a cover with Fire's "Father's Name Is Dad."
Bias: Any group of people that can sustain this level of intensity and quality for as long as the Coles have, and now with Kelly Halliburton, has my utmost respect.
Random Detail: This was Arnie Beckman's birthday. He plays bass in The Buckingham Squares and acquitted himself admirably tonight.
By the Way: Ran into Jill Mustoffa, longtime promoter of punk shows in Denver in the 80s, and Sonya Decman (formerly of The Symptoms and Tarmints and now of Smoothbore) at the show.
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