The Durham Girls Invade Florida Tour
with The Butchies, Tami Hart and Oriflamme.

Photographs and story by Jeffrey Howard

[ above: The Butchies (left) and Oriflamme (right) ]

Finally girl bands go on tour! Not counting The Donnas I can't think of the last time I saw any all-girl bands (Lung Leg and The Spice Girls were the last. They were both over a year ago). Needless to say I got excited about the show months ago even though I had never heard any of the bands other than The Butchies, mostly knowing them from the Team Dresch connection.

Earlier in the evening I was at Park Ave CDs with Sarah and I picked up the Frogpond CD in the "F" section. I have no idea who they were other than they played at the Sapphire the night before. I remember seeing that show listed in the concert listings and was curious about them. I flipped over the cover and saw the photograph on the back and I immediately began kicking myself in the ass for not finding anything about them before they played. I would have gone. They are cuties! I'm shallow. I admit. I purchased the new Stereolab. And thought about getting the Couch CD.

Because I was at the other record store I missed most of the early bands. I think there was supposed to be five bands but I only got to see three. The first one was Oriflamme from Gainesville. They were great! Two guitar players and a kick-ass drummer. One of the girls had a heavy metal guitar. Rock!

Tami Hart played a lot of sad songs on her acoustic guitar. She seemed nice and her inbetween song banter was barely audiable but when she sang, you knew exactly what she had to say.

As soon as Tami ended everyone stood up for The Butchies. The cute girl I saw ended up standing right next to me. She was wearing some adorable glasses. I was so nervous! Anyway, The Butchies were awesome. The band is kinda famous because Kia from Team Dresch is the guitar player/singer. I was expecting something a little more harsh and I was pleasantly surprised they were more melodic and dynamic (kinda like Versus). Not to mention they are really funny. The drummer was very outgoing and talked at the audience the whole show, telling jokes and a story about her toenail. It was sicky funnie. I liked all their songs. I wish I had heard them before the show so I was more familiar with them.