Dizzy Spell
Half Dizzy circles the pit at Midway Cafe on Friday, 11 October 2024.
Indoor Friends and Bad Idea USA open the triplestack bill.
By the time this review gets posted, we’ll have broken through the pleasantly brisk portion of fall into a period where the temps can start to feel downright chilly. The best part of fall, like the best part of spring, is too brief. If only someone controlled the weather…
Autumn aside, Hump Day News has been hot on the trail of Bad Idea USA all year round. Seems like every time they’re on a bill, whether it’s Nice Fest, or a punk matinee at Midway Cafe, your trusty correspondent arrives right after they’ve ended their set.
Was the same fate fated for the Friday night show? Not this time. The Salem trio garage rocked in the opening slot, and announced a new album on the way, due Thanksgiving-ish.
Oftentimes when an out-of-town band is hopping on a bill, the local bands will take certain slots on the bill to ease them into things after having been on the road a while.
You know, like taking the opening slot so the out-of-towners can grab a bite or just get oriented before their set. Or take the closing set so the out-of-towners have extra time to load out or just chill out before hitting the road again.
If all that’s true you’d expect Long Island’s Half Dizzy to play the second slot. But I don’t think they were in the building by the time Bad Idea USA wrapped. In fact, I think it was a little iffy if they’d make the gig at all. But who knows? Nobody tells me anything and why should they?
Indoor Friends played the second slot, delivering a pop-powered, vocals-forward alt rock set, complete with a “Happy Birthday” song dedicated to whomever was celebrating. That’s right, the crowd at Midway Cafe on Friday night was mostly constituted by birthday partiers, rocking the teeny tiny birthday hats, siting askance on heads throughout the venue.
The band passed out noisemakers, which produced wheezy toots at odd times for the rest of the night. Extra points for crowd participation.
Half Dizzy made it! The five-piece punk ensemble didn’t take long to settle in. About as soon as they burst through the door, they found the stage and fired up some skank-adjacent numbers hot enough to start a circle pit. Their album Courtesy Flush came out in 2023, and they just released a remix of their song “The Faceless” by Destryur.