It’s fun to think that maybe the Aughties neo-prog-rock movement with its 80-minute concept albums and piss-contest guitar riffage originated in response to the castrato pseudopunk that wussified late ‘90s airwaves – an exact reversal of the way it happened back in ’77.
But while the Sex Pistols and Ramones recaptured rock for the cool and dumb from the hands of egomaniacal music-school geeks, bands like Coheed & Cambria knock the guy-linered pencil-necks off the cover of Hit Parader to make way for, well, pretty much the same sorts of dudes, but with way better chops.
Anyone who’s struggled to play “Welcome Home” on Rock Band knows that co-lead guitarists Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever are face-melters — even if they haven’t quite perfected the fantastic-to-the-bombastic to Mars Volta masturbatorium levels — but, riffs aside, C&C is anything but cool.
Decoding frontman Sanchez’s lyrics supposedly reveals vital information about The Armory Wars saga — an always-in-progress graphic sci-fi novel series written by and starring Sanchez — a trivia tidbit so dorky that just reading this sentence is practically guaranteed to stop you from getting laid. (Sorry about that.) But between the headliners and somewhat like-minded (sans the comic-book aspect) openers the Secret Machines, guitar fetishists will have plenty to lust after. $24, 8pm Sun, Aug. 3, White Rabbit, 2410 N. St. Mary’s, sawhiterabbit.com.
