Over its thirty years Too Much Rock has evolved into a site that primarily documents local music. Sure, promoters and publicists regularly offer me wealth and power to cover their international touring acts, but Too Much Rock always holds firm to its "local bands are the best bands" mantra, refusing their pieces of silver. Usually always. Sometimes the promise of seeing a delightful Australian act just a few blocks from your house from the comfort of a chair placed against a balcony guardrail is hard to pass up.

Zoh Amba opened the night. They're a New York-based, Appalachian-bred musician who, until recently, was primarily known as an avant-garde jazz saxophonist. This year, however, they've come to the rock & roll dark side, signed with Matador, and delivered an album full of inventive indie rock tinted by Americana. On stage, Amba and their Rickenbacker guitar were joined by an additional guitarist and a drummer. Despite multiple attempts to contact Amba, I could never find out the musicians' identities. A local band would never leave me hanging like that. Amba's voice was front and center. They have a distinctive, polarizing warble with a southern drawl that diminished when pushed hard. It was often pushed hard. The opener's half-hour set ran the gamut from rootsy numbers on acoustic guitar to aggressive rockers full of Thurston Moore-esque noise to an even noisier squawking saxophone deconstruction of "Amazing Grace." Amba filled the space between songs with more noise, eschewing banter until the end of the night, when the crowd was told that there was merch and to "come un git it." Props for that – it's a total local band move.

I have video of Zoh Amba, but I don't know what song it is, and Amba wont tell me.

There are, of course, many tiers of touring acts. I shouldn't paint them all so broadly. After all, some are just local bands away from home, on expensive musical vacations. They've come to KC to play music in front of different disaffected faces, add their stickers to heretofore unseen dive bar bathroom mirrors, eat our delicious tacos, and sleep on our finest stained futons. Too Much Rock endorses this faction. Carry on, brave road warriors. Then there are bands that sit on tour buses until it's time to take the stage, play to thousands of fans who are safely sequestered on the other side of a barrier, and then are rushed back to the known (semi-)comfort of their bus. Hey, it's a living, but just not one that Too Much Rock can get behind. Well, not often anyway.

Flashlights led Courtney Barnett and her band to the stage promptly at 9pm. Touring acts don't need an introduction, so I'll just note that she's an Aussie who writes witty indie rock full of hooks and bathed in slacker vibes. She is known for her observational, conversational, and dense lyrics. It's her schtick and she's good enough at it to upset the Too Much Rock moral apple cart. She took to the stage in all white. The deep red lights that dominated the stage dressing painted her as a sort of nautical beacon on the otherwise dark sea. Her movements were confident. Every time she stepped to the edge of the stage she was met with cheers. I'd forgotten that is a thing that happens. Her guitar lines were unexpectedly aggressive, providing a delicious bite to songs that were disappointingly toothless on her latest album. While it's generally the manic ones that I appreciate the most, live versions of "Need a Little Time" and "Great Advice" showed that a subdued Barnett can be just as enticing. Her band (bassist Bones Sloane and drummer Stella Mozgawa) brought the same gusto. Sloane's backing vocals were key throughout and that drum solo at the end of "History Eraser" was complete and utter badassery.

After an ample nineteen song set (including a version of "Canned Tomatoes (Whole)" featuring the sax of Zoh Amba), the trio stepped off the stage. The audience cheered until Barnett returned for a tumbling solo rendition of "Mostly Patient." Two more followed. Big ones. Held for the end, tucked away in the encore, as is the rule. I watched it unfold from the balcony, leaning over the railing, enjoying my spoils.