By Noah Barron, guest writer

SCENE 1: A fraternity house somewhere in Los Angeles. Around 1 in the afternoon, the day after Explosions in the Sky played at the Wiltern. The phone rings.

“Oh, sh*t bro. You’ll never guess what I did last night. No, not Courtney. Well, yeah, but that was after. Dude. Explosions in the Football Night. Or Night of the Friday Explosions. Or something like that. But it was this totally dope epic rock show. You knew it was epic because of all the same notes being played over and over and over really loud and you knew it was rock because I had my shirt off showing deez guns! When da guns come out, rock has happened, right bro? Anyway, this band was just spitting game and being tight all over the place by bashing chords and rolling around on the floor like rad snakes or something. And then they got all soft sometimes and sensitive, like when you wear a condom and remember her name. Yeah. But the niceness doesn’t last because it EXPLODES into more loud awesome! F*CK YEAH. Anyway dude, you shoulda been there. See you at SAE dude. Don’t wear your brown Volcom shirt because I am gonna wear mine. On second thought let’s not even wear shirts!!!”

Okay, so I made that up based upon stereotypes and spite. But bear with me. I got daggered by a band I thought I liked, so I’m earned my right to be a jerk. How did I get fooled?

I should have known. There were clues everywhere. The opening act: 30 minutes of bird chirp loops and harmonic drone. The crowd: more popped collar frat boys than skinny pantsed rat boys. And god, the stage decoration: a Texas flag.

I was tricked by Bit Torrent. I had no idea. Explosions in the Sky is a bro band for bros to bro out to. There. I said it.

I love(d) the albums. Crashy, epic guitar rock…I didn’t see the warning signs…sure, some of the tracks are a bit samey… but I should have realized that there was something seriously wrong with Explosions when my roommate had A) heard of them and B) wanted to go. He rarely shares tastes with me…and I thought EITS were sort of obscure. And now I know why. Three chilling words….Friday Night Lights. Fist pump, chest bump, etc. etc. Explosions in the Sky are officially a post-jock band. Totally surprise chapped me with that one.

Okay, so it takes a lot of crowd to sell out the Wiltern and yet EITS did. With bros and confused blonde tagalongs. Some of them shirtless (bros, not girls). Some of them bellowing “F*ck yeah, unreal!” And all of them mesmerized by what turned out to be a totally lackluster, completely boring performance of completely un-epic epic post-rock. The reason (I gather) for EITS’s crypto popularity is spillover from the now-almost-canceled football show. Which I confess I’ve never seen. But my roommate has and said the first season was good. But to be honest, when you say “football” and “Texas” at any time, or especially in a single sentence, I start hearing the Peanuts’ teacher wah-wah-wah and play out little fantasies about ziplines and grappling guns and stuff in my head.

EITS’s main gimmick is crescendoing tinkle-notes over on blast chords with big booming god drums. Actually, that’s their only gimmick. For an hour. Of indistinguishable bluster and pretentious stage antics. Example: rhythm guitar spent practically the whole set wallowing around on the ground worshiping himself for plucking the same note over and over and over. Jesus, bro, tighten your guitar strap already and try a different note at least once every 10 minutes, thanks. P.S. clean guitar melodies are interesting. Fuzzy guitar drone is interesting. But clean guitar drone is really really boring. A little pedal micromanagement would have gone a long way.

So I dunno. As background music “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” is unimpeachable playing on the living room while zoning out (or while pounding Nati Ice and doing reps, apparently). But EITS were a huge boring disappointment live, though apparently the capacity crowd at the Wiltern thought they TOTALLY F*CKING RULED, brosef. One final note: tambourine is always super risky. The drummer, who was actually medium-tight, did this one thing that totally broke my heart. Started a little tambourine sleigh-bell jingle ring-ting-tingling in the middle of a supposedly epic bro track. Who does that? My friend Chris turned to me and was like “Santa?”