Peelander-Z @ High Five

Peelander-Z you better recognize, the only band that has ever made it from the planet of Peelander, so what if they sound like a bunch of Japanese guys and look like a bunch of Japanese guys. Oh and if there lyrics don't make that much sense, well just sit down and be quiet.. Sunday night (1/8) Peelander-Z landed at the High Five, and oh boy was it a show, it was such a show that I was still feeling the after affects on Monday. Nothing starts off a week quite like a good drunken binder followed up by prayers to the almighty while laying on the couch praying that the "hot and spicy" nachos that sounded so good earlier wouldn't be revisited in slurry form. Peelander-Z is a self described "Japanese punk action comic" band that dresses up in spandex suits and does among other things human bowling on stage. Interested? Well I was. I found out about this supernatural band that hails from Peelander about a week ago when Olaf sent me an e-mail. It went something like this "happy new year from Peelander-Z" with a URL to the Peelander-Z's website. I'm not sure what it was about the site but I didn't even bother getting past the home page before I fired an email back asking Olaf when we were going.

Sunday night I went over to Olaf's around 7:30pm to drink some beer and hang out, two beers (North Coast Brewing Co's Old #38 Stout, and Flying Dog's Amber Ale) and two hours later we were driving over to the High Five to prepare for Peelander-Z. We intended to go in at around 9:45pm but but noticed the crowd to be light and instead decided to first grab tasty beer at Surly Girl Saloon.

Surly Girl Saloon just might be one of my favorite places in Columbus to go too now. On the outside of SGS (Surly Girl Saloon) there is a little sign hanging from a pole with the symbol of a skull with horns on it's head winking. That right there is enough to make me interested, however on walking in I was greeted with a long narrow bar, shrouded in low light and dripping with style. The walls are decorated with black and white pictures of women from the fifties wearing cowboy costumes, the tables have elaborate black and red inlay's with skulls at each corner and in the center of the table is a black and white picture of a woman from the fifties wearing a cowboy hat. From the ceiling gaudy yellow and red chandeliers hang from a ceiling with gritty black tin ceiling tiles. Did I mention this place exudes style? The reason why we went to SGS was that Olaf had tried the Cappuccino Stout that SGS has on draught and figured I would want to try it me self. Cappuccino Stout would by itself be reason enough for me to like the place, however they have another 25 micro brew beers on tap! The last and final great thing about this place is that the menu is simple but tasty looking, spicy peanut butter sandwich with chocolate milk for starters and they serve till 2am. Oh and if you needed any other reason to love the place it's the after event location for the Ohio Roller Grrls. Rock.

We returned to High Five after mawing a plate of nachos and a tall glass of Cappuccino Stout. At High Five I ran into some people I knew and attempted to order some Jack Daniels only to find out that you can't get hard alcohol on Sundays in Ohio. My backup was to try Brooklyn Breweries Monster Ale which in hindsight was my first step into self destruction. The "Monster Ale" is a barley wine with a whopping 10.8% abv, it will kick your ass, then kick your head, then it may just crush your testicles just because it's feeling bored. I realize Jack Daniels can do that too but I have a healthier respect for Jack Daniels than I do for beer. Marvin the Robot opened for Peelander-Z and while he's music sounds better on CD than it does live I'm just not much for the intentionally out of tune music. I have no idea what time Peelander-Z came on but you knew they were starting when this seventies sounding Power Ranger like theme song started blasting and suddenly Peelander Blue, Yellow and Red (left, center, right) were powering up like sugared out power rangers. I think I would have gotten a lot more out of the show had I listened to any of their stuff before going, which might be a statement in itself as I still really dug the show. It's tough to explain but they felt like a band instead many of the "bands" that I have heard from time to time. Maybe I only tend to go see shows for people that play in a band as a hobby compared those who do it for a living. Their music while nothing earth shattering was together and the effortless way in which Peelander-Z got the crowd into the show felt natural not staged. This is an impressive thing in my mind for a bunch of guys that don't seem to speak much English, seriously throughout the show they used cue cards to interact with the crowd. After the show I was able get the autographs of each members of Peelander-Z on my official Peelander-Z fan which now is on the wall of my office.

Sunday night nearly broke me though, I got about 2-3 hours of sleep Sunday night. I blame the bouts of dizzies mixed in with the queasiness of too many exotic beers, on top of Jack Daniels with a hint of nachos. Monday I came home and passed out at 6:30pm and didn't wake up till the next morning. Thirteen hours, I'm pretty sure that in my entire life I've not slept thirteen hours at once but it's not every day you get to go see an interspectacular band like Peelander-Z ;).