I went to see Surfer Blood last night at Respectable Street Cafe in West Palm Beach. It was a last-minute decision made primarily because the ticket was a cool $12.75 and some friends from work were headed up. I really like Astro Coast, but I wasn’t expecting much, which made the whole thing a pleasant surprise.

Surfer Blood at Respectable Street on 4/20/2010 (Image © Rebekah Monson)

Opening acts included The Dewars, Love Handles and Turbo Fruits, a Nashville trio that is getting some well-deserved attention from the indie rock press these days. We caught the tail end of a rambling Love Handles set, and then Turbo Fruits took the stage. Ironic hipster mustaches aside, they were just plain badass, and I snagged their album, Echo Kid, today on emusic solely for the songs “Trouble” and “Naked With You.”

Surfer Blood wound up the evening with a very short 8-song (maybe 9?) set, but, hey, I think they only have 12 songs total. All songs were recognizably rendered and enjoyable. Swim was particularly good, perhaps because that’s the single they’ve had to play over and over and over. All in all, it was kind of like losing your virginity — sweet, exciting and embarrassingly short. We all left feeling a mixture of “That was great!” and “That was it?” Anyway, it was certainly worth the 13 bucks, and I will see them again when they get some more material together. Go forth and multiply, young Blood.

Here’s a truly awful video I shot on my iPhone of my favorite (for sentimental reasons) Surfer Blood tune, “Twin Peaks”: