The Acrobats of Etiquette fought their first—and, they insist, their last for at least nine months—battle of the bands last Thursday. Simple two-act bout, and our pirate pals (we write unflinchingly with home-court bias) was in rare fettle, true fighting form. Had a new singalong anthem even, a sucker punch if ever there was one.
What the AoE hadn’t accounted for, and the reason why they’ll never stumble through this particular forest again, is the size of their opponent’ s family.
Ever been to an Arnold Rice show? Ever noticed that just about everybody in the crowd looks out of place? How you could never imagine so many people willingly coming out to see a middling singer-songwriter who has neither the presence nor to projection skills to command the stages he infrequently plays?
It takes nothing away from his performance skills (such as they are) to reveal that Arnie Rice is part of an immigrant wave which hit this town in the 1960s. He’s related to several entire neighborhoods which are walking distance from Hamilton’s. Plus he tends to book his gigs on family reunion weekends and holidays.
If the majority of the local population wants to corral a well-situated club for family festivities, who’s to stop ‘em? But isn’t holding a battle of the bands on such a night a tad unfair?

Far from being sore losers, the Acrobats of Etiquette are taking this loss as a further challenge. They intend to build their own fervent family-filled fanbase, starting right now.That’s where the self-imposed nine-month moratorium between battles comes in. “None of us have kids,” the Acs of Et regret. “We’ve got our work cut out for us if we want to have a few fresh faces at the next battle of the bands.” Then, in another generation or so, they’ll be beating mama’s boy Arnie Rice at his own game.

Poll Parrot and The Devil and Mr. O at the Bullfinch… Gene and Glenn and Forty-Five Minutes, economical cover acts, at Hamilton’s… Kitchen Klatter and The Planet Man at D’ollaire’s; two more unalike bands could apparently not be found…