Texas Platters

The Paul Green School of Rock music presents 'The Wall'

Redrum, Jan. 20

Seeing 15 children clad in black with matching red armbands perform Pink Floyd's classic The Wall is surreal enough, but witnessing their parents singing along as a full house puts it all in perspective. The Paul Green School of Rock Music has been educating Austin kids in the art of the rock since September, and their live debut came in the form of back-to-back nights of one of rock's conceptual peaks. As musical director and local punk rock vet Rick Carney prefaced, the experience was the result of "three months of sweat, frustration, and torture" for the teachers at the school. Pink would have been proud. A fog machine added to the swagger of plodding opener "In the Flesh," and by "The Thin Ice," the kids had the rock posturing down. "Another Brick in the Wall" sounded funkier than the original as vocalist Trey Gish looked out from under his long mop with appropriate English sneer when he sang, "Leave them kids alone." The diminutive guitarist on "Young Lust" looked like a mini-Kurt Cobain, and keyboardist Colt Rogers had some Joel in him. There was stumbling, of course, some nervousness, some forgetting of words. Yet Carney and assistant Travis Woodard took it all in stride from the front of the stage, coaxing the kids back into spotlight as the fog machine coughed out bitchin' versions of "Hey You" and "Run Like Hell." For a production as acid-fabled as this one, the kids did a great job. Can't wait for their Ramones tribute this spring.