On Friday, Jan. 24, alternative/rock bands Las Pesadillas, Earlimart, and Forever Goldrush put on a concert for eager fans at Old Ironsides in Downtown Sacramento.

I was lucky enough to get a bench seat about five feet away from the stage, which was pretty cool until the bar became as overstuffed as the Sac State parking lot. The crowd grew progressively larger as each band took the stage. By the time Forever Goldrush performed, I barely had enough room to stretch without accidentally hitting someone.

First up was Las Pesadillas, and for those of you who haven’t taken enough foreign language classes yet, “las pesadillas” is Spanish for “the nightmares.” Curiously, the band didn’t perform any music that you would call nightmarish, unless your bad dreams involve frenetic mixtures of different musical styles, which, come to think of it, they may.

“(Our music) is adventurous and fun, (but) not in an immature way,” says bassist and vocalist Jon Mack.

Whether or not Mack is correct is debatable, but some audience members certainly agreed with him, judging by their behavior during the performance. The show was almost stolen by a very striking lady who danced to her own beat while Las Pesadillas tried maintain control of the audience’s attention span. Her seizure-like moves were so passionate, I almost expected her to start break-dancing. During about the fifth song, Noah Nelson, a vocalist, began laughing while he was supposed to be singing. Maybe the dancing lady finally caught his eye as well.

I’ll admit, I’m not much of an alternative or rock music aficionado, but I absent-mindedly tapped my foot or bobbed my head to several of Las Pesadillas’ beats. Their music is difficult to categorize, since it blends different styles in each song. At times, salsa-inspired tunes shared the spotlight with country, distorted guitar rhythms, and shrill singing to produce a unique blend of sonic output. During Las Pesadillas’ first few tunes, I kept thinking of the song “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” but with more garage band catastrophe. Towards the end of their performance, a few of Las Pesadillas’ songs began to sound the same, but, overall, their music is one-of-a-kind.

Next up to bat was Earlimart, a group from Los Angeles that definitely brought a unique ambience to the place. They dimmed the stage lights very low, decorated their instruments with white Christmas tree lights, and played artificial cricket sounds in the background while they performed. It’s a good thing the Christmas tree lights weren’t the blinking kind, or the dancing lady might have had seizures for real.

Earlimart gets a few cool points for their performance creativity. The near darkness and the Christmas tree lights accentuated the mellow, placid mood they conveyed through many of their songs. The lead singer sang softly during the first two songs, his voice slightly more than a whisper.

Earlimart’s early tunes reminded me of the soft-alternative rock that I hear as background music on a few of those teen shows on the WB. However, the quiet dreamy stuff was just a warm-up. Just when the audience was lulled into passive enjoyment, Earlimart shook things up with the booming guitar chaos you would expect from a rock concert. The tempo went into high gear, while the other instruments unleashed rapid sound and fury on the eardrums. For those of you looking for good music, Earlimart delivers.

The final act was Forever Goldrush, a group that invested more faith in soulful southern rock than the spastic musical confusion created by your average “rock” group. Their music seemed the most “mainstream” of the night’s entertainment. They presented mellow, poppy tunes that were catchy, inoffensive, and reminiscent of other bands like Wilco. The country influence was evident during their time on stage, but there was just enough pop to keep it on the fringe of that particular genre. During the concert, anyone calling Forever Goldrush’s music country did a disservice to the other musical styles offered during the performance.

All in all, Friday night’s concert was definitely a treat for fans of the alternative/rock/pop genre of music, which is becoming increasingly more difficult to define.