Monday night, fans lined up outside The Bottleneck, 707 Vt., to see the bands Sparta and Thursday perform.

At 9 p.m., a few hundred fans were still waiting to get into the show, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

Sparta is originally from El Paso, Tex., and Thursday is from New Brunswick, N.J. Descriptions of the bands’ musical styles include punk, emo and rock.

“It’s a mix of different kinds of music,” explained Bobby Johnson, of Sedalia, Mo.

Johnson said he became interested in Sparta because they feature members from the band At the Drive In.

“Sparta has three people from At the Drive In in the band  Paul, Jim, and Tony,” he said.

Another fan, who wanted to remain anonymous, said Sparta sounds similar to At the Drive In.

“If you like Sparta, listen to At the Drive In,” he said.

Jon Boldt of Gardner said Thursday was the reason they came to the show.

“Thursday’s who we came to see,” he said.

Brian Pettis, also of Sedalia, said he came a long way to see Thursday perform.

“Thursday’s really, really good. We drove 2 1/2 hours to come and see them,” he said.

Thursday’s album, “Full Collapse,” features the song “Understanding in a car crash.” The video for the song has appeared on MTV. Fans have different opinions about the video.

“The video’s alright,” said Boldt.

The anonymous fan had a different opinion.

“Videos suck  but if your agent tells you to put out a video, you’ve got to put out a video,” he said. “It’s all marketing if you want to sell cool punk emo crap to kids. But the puppets in the video (are) in cool clothes. All videos are good for is marketing. Free your mind. Stop watching videos. And stop dressing like the cool emo bands on TV. They’re told to dress that way. It sells.”

Despite the mixed opinions about the video, all of the fans in line at The Bottleneck seemed to like Thursday’s music.

“Thursday’s one of the greatest bands I’ve ever heard,” said Eric Snel of Sedalia.

“Thursday kicks ass,” said Justin Gilbert of Gardner.

 Jonathan Sanfilippo is a student at Baker University in Baldwin.