Like a scene swiped from a Wes Anderson film, the blood red curtains and fiery red lights at the Lost Horizon on Friday night set the stage for an intoxicating performance by two up-and-coming rock bands: Greenwheel and Injected.

“Who in here likes drinking to rock n’ roll better than b-ball or sports ball as we call it in Georgia?” Danny Grady, the lead singer of Injected bellowed at the crowd, who yelled and hollered in approval. About 100 people turned out for the concert: an unsurprisingly low number given the university’s hosting of the NCAA 2002 Regionals.

Grady and his band mates were not out to dis the proverbial (basketball) rock, but their surging and tuneful set matched the kind of intensity and decibel level of a packed Carrier Dome. And with the Lost Horizon’s intimate space, the acoustics were incredible.

Greenwheel and Injected are signed to the thriving Island Records label. Both alterna-metal bands are on the road debuting their respective albums. Injected, from Atlanta, just released its debut album “Burn It Black” and continues to receive much fanfare. Greenwheel’s “Soma Holiday” will be in stores May 21. The St. Louis quintet took the stage after Slave One opened for the headlining bands.

Despite the low attendance, Greenwheel’s lead singer Ryan Jordan let their set fly with his powerful and invigorating vocals. Jordan was immersed in his performance, cupping the microphone like a wine glass and falling down on his knees to express his powerful lyrics.

“It’s a dream come true doing this,” Greenwheel guitarist Andrew Dwiggins said. “And we’re gonna have fun the whole time. It was apparent this could be our job right before we signed our deal and we got a good following locally. But we just threw ourselves into the music.”

This was very evident Friday night. Although Greenwheel has a heavy-metal flavor, they have an underlying groove filled with a lot of bass and a nice rhythm section, said Gwendolyn Favers, a senior music industry major.

“They’re very smooth,” Favers said. “Their hooks and their melodies are very catchy.”

The same may be said for Injected who performed right after Greenwheel and reeled from their first three tracks off “Burn it Black.” Their songs have a continuity to them and their popular single “Faithless” had the Lost Horizon contingent swaying and headbanging.

Technical difficulties abounded, despite Injected’s mic checks prior to songs they covered from Quicksand, a band which no longer exists but whose driving guitar sound is similar to Injected’s.

Injected showed its audience they were solid musicians and their ability to work with the rhythms and melodies while still sounding hard was apparent in “Bullet,” “Burn It Black” and “Sherman.”

Grady said the lyrics to his songs are 70 percent based on his personal experiences.

“I make songs as a gift for friends,” said Grady, who formed Injected with his friends from Roswell High School in 1995.

“I’m not a carpenter, but I don’t have to try to be and we write our songs so close to our experiences that we end up having a positive energy and message. There aren’t a lot of bands out there that kids can identify with having that,” Grady added.

Christian Toms is a sophomore newspaper and policy studies major. E-mail him at [email protected].

Published on March 24, 2002 at 12:00 pm