Eventually, due to the extreme heat, Cherry Valence drummer/vocalist Nick Whitely began to evaporate. In addition to the demands of drumming and occasional singing, Tim Soete has to worry about the fact that bandmate Tim Green is too far away and too poorly lit to show up in photographs. Assuming you read the article before reading these captions, you probably got to the part about Josh Smith "gurning" and wondered, "Gurning? What the fuck does that mean?" Perhaps now you'll understand.

Openers Drunk Horse ambled onto the stage at about ten and played a solid but ultimately uninspiring set of amped-up, Southern-flavored rock 'n' roll that drew heavily from the Lynyrd Skynyrd school of guitar tomfoolery. For forty minutes -- at least ten minutes longer than strictly necessary -- the bearded vagabonds played songs about beer, money and women, in that order. While the sparse crowd lapped up every single note they played, in the end they were less entertaining than their moniker implied; their songs started promisingly, with big, riff-heavy rev-ups, but never quite delivered a big bang. Vocalist Elijah Eckert occasionally verged on David Lee Roth-style vocal histrionics, but otherwise, the set was...well, of a level of quality befitting an opening act. (If you want to be really entertained, look at Drunk Horse's 1999 band photo and then look at them now. They clearly stopped shaving the day the picture was taken and haven't touched a razor since.)

Things started looking up as Raleigh, NC's Cherry Valence hit the stage and ripped straight into their supercharged set of blues-inflected, dual-drummered, bare-bones rock 'n' roll. While their set was barely half an hour long, the Valence tossed off enough white-hot riffs, manic rhythms and gnarled vocals to fill ten separate bills. Tracks like "Sweat Sweat Sweat" were absolutely storming, the band transforming their songs into wild, cigarette-in-mouth, fall-about rock 'n' roll anthems. However, the whole drummer-as-vocalist problem was doubly obvious here; in order to sustain the band's sound, both drummers had to remain behind their drum kits, which left little to look at, on-stage action-wise. Nick Whitely, shirtless, sweat-drenched and rail thin, was a decent frontman when he was actually in front of the band, though his vocals are a little higher and more girlish than most of today's balls-out rockers. Brian Quast seemed a little more commanding as a vocalist, but also seemed to be in constant danger of falling over the clutter of equipment on stage as he scrambled between his kit and the mic.

The following are three things you are guaranteed to see at any Fucking Champs show:

1. A drunk woman dancing by herself in a dark corner
2. A dozen mesh-backed, Grandaddy-style bait store trucker hats (Tennessee Top-hats)
3. Sleeveless Steve Vai/Eric Johnson/Joe Satriani tour shirts from the early '80s

The Champs' set, a fifty minute affair, drew extensively from the newly-released V, including "Crummy Lovers Die in the Grave", "Hats Off To Music" and a suitably energized performance of Bach's "Air on a G-String". Indeed, the band's entire set was significantly more aggressive than their recorded material, due largely to lead guitarist Josh Smith's truly inspirational work with his Ron Seargent nine-string guitar.

Smith's performance, which included the requisite amount of metal posturing and gurning, was the only real action on the poorly-lit stage. Remember, these guys are mostly instrumental; drummer Tim Soete's brief singing stint notwithstanding, none of them are vocalists, so if you don't appreciate their brand of highly technical metal, you're basically fucked for the duration of their set (and if you don't have earplugs, you'll be deaf, too). There's only so long you can watch even the best fretboard calisthenics when they aren't accompanied by lights, flash-pots, animatronic devil-heads and the out-of-control antics of a charismatic frontman, and while the Fucking Champs have the chops, the showmanship was lacking this evening.

That said, showmanship really wasn't necessary, particularly if you were right in front of the stage, being buffeted by powerful winds from the floor-level PA. The Fucking Champs fucking rock, plain and simple, and their short set left almost everyone wanting more. Lots more.

Most of all, we just wanted them to tell the audience to be excellent to each other.

Article by Jason Jackowiak and George Zahora. Photos by George Zahora.