At the Commodore Ballroom on Friday, February 16

My beat here at the Straight is one my friends affectionately refer to as “extreme reviewing”. Suffice it to say, scrounging up friends to see shows with me is next to impossible. You see, I take all the assignments that my male colleagues aren't man enough (or broke enough) to do. In the last few months alone, I've survived two Cobalt spectacles (and the exposure to various bodily fluids that entails). I've also driven in monsoon conditions to Coquitlam for the pleasure of seeing Lisa Marie Presley waddle around on-stage. And then there was the Black Eyed Peas show at the Pacific Coliseum, during which I was unceremoniously ejected from the premises and forced to scarf down my contraband Subway sandwich in the freezing cold as I waited to get patted down once again. So to be leisurely sipping wine and grazing on my Commodore burger with a perfect view of the band was heaven. The fact that the show itself was pretty much flawless was just the icing on my rock-reviewing cake.

My plum assignment began with Ben Kweller, who—along with his hired guns, bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Mark Stepro—gave one of the best performances of the year. Switching back and forth between guitar and piano, the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter rocked out with some new and improved mood-lifting material like the whimsical “Penny on the Train Track”. Other times, he got his blues on and treated us to some wicked Mississippi string pickin'. He also did a short solo acoustic set, in which he paid homage to his Texan roots with a southern-cooked cover of Roger Miller's “Chug A Lug”. But what's even more remarkable than Kweller's showmanship is his songwriting. When I looked over at the friend I had actually managed to drag along, her eyes almost bulged out of her skull when he dropped the line “Show me all the rules, girl, I just want to get 'em wrong.” And with that, the cherub-faced 25-year-old summed up the age-old Catch-22 that's been doggin' male-female relations since the beginning of time. Impressive.

Next, Gomez came out and offered a little something, something for everyone. This being a truly democratic outfit, three members of the Southport, England, quintet took turns singing their individually written songs. For fans of good, clean, head-bopping Britpop, shaggy-haired keyboardist Tom Gray rolled out “Girlshapedlovedrug”. Sounding dangerously close to the Dave Matthews Band, guitarist Ben Ottewell gave us some Folk Fest–ish ditties like “See the World”. In the garage-rock category, scratchy-voiced guitarist Ian Ball came off as the weak link at first—but that was only because his delivery wasn't nearly as polished as that of his mates. However, it didn't take long for Ball's raw grit to grow on the crowd. By the end, when he kicked out a truly rockin' version of “Get Myself Arrested” (from the group's '98 release Bring It On), he not only proved us wrong, but he also showed us why there's no “i” in Gomez. His kick-ass encore was also a nice capper on what can only be described as a dream writing gig. Having said that, the next time a blood-squirting black-metal band thrashes out at an abandoned firetrap deep in the Downtown Eastside, I'm so there.