On Friday night, Tara and I saw the Secret Machines at First Ave. My concert calendar has been pretty quiet lately, and it’s going to take a lot to top this show as the best of the year.

The evening was unique for its lack of any opening bands, and this further added to the Big Event-feel that the show had developed. We began the set standing at stage left, in front of Brandon Curtis’ Rhodes, but I soon suggested moving to the other side of the room so we’d be closer to Josh Garza’s drum kit. Tara just looked at me like, “Well, duh,” and started weaving through the crowd. While we were walking around the back of the room, I noticed that the bass and drums were making the glass in the pinball machines rattle.

Here are some of the pictures I managed to take before one of the security guys told me to knock it off:

Josh Garza is one of the sickest drummers alive right now. He’s my new hero and makes me want to purchase a 24-inch kick drum. And to join a band that allows me to set up near the front of the stage, facing sideways.

Ben Curtis’ skin-tight jeans and boots with straps on them prompted Tara to remark, “The eighties are so back,” while the ridiculously intricate and awesomely awesome lightshow prompted me to wonder whether the seventies would be following close behind.

The band’s fan base is not entirely what I was anticipating: the crowd around us, at least, seemed disproportionately comprised by frat boys who responded to the smoke machines by hoisting their Rolling Rocks in the air and whoooooooooooo!ing. To be fair, however, I was doing the same thing by the time they encored with “First Wave Intact,” and was transmogrified into That Guy.

After the show, we headed across the street so I could get my picture taken with my true musical hero: