CMJ Music Marathon 2008 Day 2: Bonne Aparte

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Bonne Aparte’s performance at the Cake Shop was what happened afterwards. Through a doorway that leads into the venue’s crowded backstage area, the band’s bodies draped themselves over cluttered shelves, panting as they poured water over their sweat drenched heads — as if they had just brought themselves to the brink of death and pulled back at the last minute. Technical excellence was not their forte, but it almost didn’t seem as if there was room for it. The four-piece roared through the Cake Shop’s basement with unabashed gusto, fueled by machine gun drums and belching distortion as they passed. What was left was a shell of a band, seemingly waiting for everybody else to catch up.