June 16 - Although tragically under—attended, the El Mocambo featured great music on Thursday in the form of Americans Gauntlet Hair and Ontario's own thunderstormers PS I Love You. Unfortunately, if theatre has taught us anything, it's that with great music sometimes comes a terrible, terrible curse.

Though listed as a two-piece, Denver's Gauntlet Hair enlisted additional help on bass and guitar, rounding out their sound for their two gigs for the festival. At El Mocambo, the duo lined their band up all along the front of the stage, placing their performers as front and center as their indie rock places their thoughts and feelings.





Particularly entertaining was drummer Craig Nice, who was as amusing as impressive to watch as he played on an electric drum set. Thankfully, the heart and energy of the band is proportionate to Nice's skill with the drums, and the group finished very strongly, leaving the audience primed for the night's special guest performer, which Twitter leaked to be Kingston's PS I Love You.

The evening was one of technical frustration for the duo - comprised of Paul Saulnier on guitar (and foot organ) and Ben Nelson on drums - as their early evening set at the Horseshoe Tavern saw Saulnier blow out his amplifier after one song. Setting Twitter abuzz and drawing incredible crowds to the tavern for their 10 p.m. set made scheduling them as the special guest at El Mocambo at 2 a.m. a very sensible choice.



However the curse had yet to lift; though they were scheduled to begin on the hour, Saulnier's gear experienced a lot of difficulty - likely due to the mishap earlier in the evening - and the band weren't able to begin for 30 minutes. Once they were finally able to begin, Saulnier again proved to be sonically overpowering and the band blew a fuse, once again rendering them unable to play.

Despite a laundry list of electrical problems, PS I Love You are deserving of consideration when the conversation turns to powerful rock duos - a la Black Keys or White Stripes - and the music they were able to play was exciting and bombastic, definitely a band to watch, or to continue watching.