Useless Eaters played a short set at the Hemlock Tavern on Friday, and denied yells for more. Halfway through, Seth broke a string; somehow unable to get another, he left his guitar on the floor and moved to full vocal duties. It took a song for the band to reconfigure, but ultimately it worked. The band morphed into a more primitive punk sound and the crowd responded with a swirling mosh pit. The spontaneous rearrangement was impressive, but, shoved to stage left, I yearned for a guitar string. I wanted the show to pick up where the second tune of the set, “Receiver (Drop the Bomb)” left off. Seth’s intense vocals are fucking great, but it’s his voice on top of his insanely fast, inventive guitar work that will propel this band to the fame they deserve.

Scraper had quite the fan club in the house. After half a dozen songs, the band tried to pack it up, but the people demanded more. Although no one got in line to make requests as the band suggested, Scraper did play a request for the single encore and “Lick Me” was far and away their shining moment.

Generation Loss opened the evening and proved a very tough act to follow. They came out of the gate full force. Really fine guitar work, harmonies, interesting chord changes, it soon became clear that this wasn’t your typical opening band. It didn’t hurt that the band played in the dark as endlessly beautiful video projected upon them. Their September recordings (now available on cassette!) include the song “Line,” with the lyrics “I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna wait in line anymore.” Nice. Finally, Kyle Crawford, the mastermind behind the Wizard Mountain record label (Grass Widow, Traditional Fools, Scraper) is out of the closet. With Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin in the audience, it seems likely you will be hearing a lot more from this band.