The Heisenburg Principal in concert at the Southeast IEEE Convention
7/8/2000
 The engineers of the 2000 Southeast IEEE Convention were treated to a break at the Atlanta Mariott hotel by a concert by The Heisenburg Principle. The band, longtime favorites in academia, took stage and played mostly songs from their new album, Fear the Millennium. The ska-influences of the newest album were a drastic change to an audience used to the more complex progressive rock pieces that the band played in the early 80's, or even the new-wave sound the band exhibited in the 90's.

Lead singer Puggsy Rhodes is obviously new to the front man scene, as up until this year he had been the band's drummer. Rhodes interaction with the audience mainly consisted of yelling "Woo! Atlanta!" and "Is the IEEE rocking tonight?" Nevertheless, it appears the gravelly-voiced singer is slowly getting used to fronting the band.

Bass guitarist Bryan Heisenburg was content to remain in the background and pound away on his bass guitar, playing his trademark "sloppy bass" sound. The lyrical force and driving component of the band, the 49 year old bald bass player was conservatively dressed and didn't attract much attention to himself.

Bryan's son, Hezekiah Heisenburg was another story. The spiked green-haired fifteen year-old guitarist exhorted the crowd to "Get up!", "Jump around!" and "Praise the Lord, yo!" The audience of engineers didn't know quite know what to do with the youngster's antics. Hezekiah was adequate on the guitar for the new songs, but had a great deal of difficulty handling former guitarist Chester Wiggins' rapid-fire solos on the older progressive rock numbers and the best he could do to replicate Trevor Dare's effects-laden guitar on other older songs was generate a lot of feedback

Cody "Gimp Bizquick" Jones and Wendi "Godz Diva" Fleischman played trumpet and trombone on parts of some of the songs, but spent most of the concert running around the stage, running into each other, and jumping into the crowd of startled engineers. Drummer Stumpy Whippensworth was present, but it was hard to differentiate him from the multitude of pre-recorded drum machine tracks.

While the concert may have garnered a couple of new fans, many engineers left the show grumbling, "This isn't the band that I grew up listening to..."


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