About halfway into the SSRIs’ CD release party last Friday I could not wait for the headliner to hit the stage and save the night for me. See, I’m realizing that my age and curmudgeonly ways are starting to catch up and relating to some of this “retro” synth nerd punk that’s all the rage is becoming an increasingly more difficult task. We live in the age of the awkward hipster and apparently there is no escaping it. That being said there were definitely praiseworthy moments when each of the three supporting acts shone brightly. Fine Mist especially were solid tight and Megan McDonald could belt it out. The other two bands, MT-40 and Bad Fate respectively were synthesizer rich pop that lacked in depth but had plenty of surge and danceable spunk, even though the time warp back to bad ’80s dance clubs and worse cocaine started to get tired and SSRIs became the only thing on my mind. Effortless restless abandon is what SSRIs play and they do it so damned well. Tonight the band was on fire, excitedly playing songs off the freshly released Effeminate Godzilla-Sized Wind Chimes along with a few treats from their past releases which got the biggest response from a packed crowd. The audience themselves were a little rough around the edges and prompted a request from the band for the rowdies to hop up and down and not side to side all arms akimbo because things were getting pretty rough, but this quickly smoothed out and in the end the band truly amazed. All in all, despite my reactions to some of this repackaged new-fangled awkward music on offer it was still an exciting show. As always SSRI’s were fantastic!