Last Friday, your East Bay Correspondent left the confines of her designated area to witness a rare spectacle - a Bay Area performance by Survival Research Labs. which took place in San Jose as part of the ISEA festival. This was the first large-scale (i.e. includes fire) public Bay Area SRL show in approximately 10 years.

We did not try to utilize our newfound status as an SFist correspondent in order to wrangle a press pass for the sold out show. Instead, we managed a press ticket hook-up through the fine folks at Neighborhood Public Radio, who were participating artists in the ISEA festivities. While we did not score one of the media hospitality kits, we did stand in press pass limbo with the illustrious Kimberly Chun of the Bay Guardian.

The show was indeed spectacular, loud, and lots of machines and props got set on fire and demolished. As almost all of our photos turned out blurry and featured the balding head of the fellow in front of us and his video camera, we will instead post a link to the SRL show page, giving credit where credit is due. In the foreground, is an armored modified forklift with SRL's shockwave cannon atop, built and operated by Richmond, CA resident, Kimric Smythe, proprietor of the eponymous, Smythe's Accordion Center.

Missing from the spectacle was the obligatory industrial strength "thing that smells really really bad." Past shows have included a rotting cow, fish extract, and industrial grade patchouli.

SFist Sarah L, contributing.