Darryl Morden from The Hollywood Reporter seemed to enjoy Wednesday's show at the Roxy:

Oct. 31, 2003
Ima Robot

By Darryl Morden

Bottom line: A near reckless good time with a touch of the arty, the L.A. boys play a wild, celebrative show for an enthused hometown crowd.

The Roxy, West Hollywood
Wednesday, Oct. 29

"Meet the new new wave, not too different from the old new wave.

Not unlike their Canadian contemporaries Hot Hot Heat, with whom they've toured, L.A.'s Ima Robot plays tilt-a-whirl sounds clearly inspired by bands of the late '70s and early '80s.

The band clearly was tickled by the howling response during Wednesday's hometown show at the Roxy, with a largepercentage of female fans gyrating to the frantic beats and shouting along during choruses, spurring on the band's already high-energy output.

Rock-star skinny and with a bowl-shaped haircut shaved just above the ears to look weird enough, singer Alex Ebert is all spasmodic, herky-jerky dance moves, jumping on amplifiers and bounding about the stage with pinched, pseudo-Brit vocals. The rest of the band, while also animated, looked pretty much like everyday guys bounding about, and there also was a definite dorks-as-cool factor happening on the small stage.

Although too many of the group's songs come off as novelties -- couched in boop-beep programd keyboards and manic rhythms in numbers including "Dynomite," "Song #1" and the band's local hit, "Black Jettas," which name-drops locations like Encino -- it's hard to resist the combination of reckless abandon and throbbing, artsy dance-rock.

There was enough appealing chop-and-slash punky guitar and actual drum bashing elsewhere for the band's strongest numbers, especially the ultracatchy "Alive" and "Philosophofee," both drawing partial inspiration from early '70s Britrock and glam. Although fluffy overall, there's some sly social commentary on the marketing of music and military action found in "Here Comes the Bombs."

For the most part, however, Ima Robot is all about fun, teetering on the brink of sonic chaos, which seemed to come at the end of the set, when the group's drummer, Joey Waronker, mysteriously went AWOL and a guy named Scott stepped up the stage to fill in for a speedy instrumental. Scott came back with the band for two unfortunately aimless encore numbers, when a cover tune -- from the '80s, of course -- might've capped the night."

oh cool. i didnt really understand the whole ending bit, but now its clear. damn i am jealous.