It used to be cool for bands to turn their backs on the audience and face the wall while playing. Then bands stood BEHIND walls. Occasionally, acts would project images on the stage and play behind the screen, or even in an another room. Some such reclusive musicians  sampled and remixed so incessantly that attendance wasn’t even necessary.

On Thursday at the Bullfinch, an nth degree was reached. A certain on-the-way down ensemble of wall-gazers did its signature turn-around thing—so 1989—two songs into the set. When they turned back around, the entire audience had fled. All of us.

Such a feat was accomplished because there were fewer than 20 of us in the “crowd,” and we easily convinced each other.

Eventually we all returned—we’d paid for the tickets, after all, and more importantly we wanted drinks. But we kept up the ruse, turning OUR backs to the band until it slunk away at the end of the night.

A couple people cheated, watching the show on pocket mirrors. They informed us that we hadn’t missed anything. We’d noticed.

At the Bullfinch: Sky Mall, Free Copy and We’ll Replace It, head-in-the-clouds indie… Cover bands at Hamilton’s include More Cool Stuff and Special Offer—why doesn’t THIS club have a band called Free Copy?! It’d be truth in advertising…. D’ollaire’s presents an evening with No! No! Hair!—all five songs of it…