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INDIELIGHTFUL:  No Shackles At Freedom Bar
It was with much hesitation that I joined Candice Lopez at Freedom Bar last night, July 11.   Dressed in corporate gear (read: long-sleeved polo, slacks and shoes not designed to wallow in mud), I wasn't exactly enthusiastic.

"Is it going to be loud?" I asked.  "I'm still recovering from that last session with Tangled Up In Blue."  I saw visions of shabbily-dressed, tattooed hooligans beating me up, my own Calvin and Hobbes tattoo paling in comparison to their skulls, crossbones and biker chick designs.  It wasn't a pretty picture.  I felt nauseous.

"I can't promise you it's not going to be loud," the ever amiable, ever frank Cands replied.  I gulped, took a deep breath, tried to coax my balls out from underneath my stomach, and entered the appropriately-named Freedom Bar.

The next three hours were nothing short of exhilirating.  I caught seven incredible bands, each one reveling in its own genre.  At the start, the place wasn't that jampacked (a pity for opening act Imago, whose energy and musicality onstage was tops for the night), but no matter!  By midnight, there wasn't an empty chair in the house - odd, ennit, considering the streets were deserted?

Each band had its own unique sound, its own distinct flavor, that, sitting in my chair, water from the airconditioning dripping on my shoulder, I realized: this is it.  This is the motherload.  This is what needs to be given publicity instead of those shameless show bands.

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