Small Brown Bike / Bridge and Tunnel

live in New York (2010)

Brian Shultz

While the Cake Shop is a wonderful venue, the absolute lack of ventilation was murder when Small Brown Bike graced the bakery basement crowd with their presence. The sweltering, unrelenting heat that hung in the air gave things an ironic twist if you look at it metaphorically--over the late '90s and early '00s, SBB became the epitome of Midwest, emotional post-hardcore punk with more of a wintry aesthetic than most. But by the time the band delved into closer "The Cold" (see?), at least three dudes up front had shed their shirts as they waved their arms and hands into vocalist/guitarist Mike Reed's personal space.

We arrived just as Let Me Run had finished their set, which was a slight bummer (also, supposedly Gaslight Anthem guitarist Alex Rosamilia was filling in). But Your Skull My Closet followed with a pretty rousing, cool set of noisy, riffy '90s punk with Drive Like Jehu/Jawbox vibes. Some bald, portly gentleman introduced them in the weirdest way, though, with a violently enthusiastic and numerically erroroneous countdown (pretty sure he counted from 20-11 twice in a row). Not sure what that was all about. Anyway, apparently their drummer is ex-SBB, so I hear.

People were already packing the front when Bridge and Tunnel were ready to go, and I hope those in the audience felt blessed for their front-row treat; the band played a set that was rather captivating despite it being halfway comprised of new material I'm not totally familiar with (presumably, some or all of it was off their new Indoor Voices EP). But that tends to be the case with B&T, though--they play with such passion and conviction it's hard to look away. They kicked it off with a song about stagnation in the field of education and a need to progress the way things are taught--probably something that hits close to home for vocalist/guitarist Jeff Cunningham, since he's a teacher. As much as the muggy air was beginning to choke off everyone in the room, him and guitarist/vocalist Rachel Rubino fought through perspiration and gave their all. Sometimes the vocals were a little low; sometimes the timing was slightly off; besides that, the atmosphere of effects pedals and raw melodies were infectious and set it up awesomely for SBB.

Set list (10:34-11:08):