Simply put I heart Brockton. That club is always so much fun. when you leave a show smiling and still are happy hours later, you know you did good.
Also, chris bbd is my hero for getting me my battery charger.
will to live: this was the first band on the bill. as they chugged down on the first note, the floor went crazy and someone immediately flew through the side door making the door alarm go off. funny that it happened right on the first note. this sort of set the stage for the whole show. W2L was pretty damn good. Heavy hardcore that sounded west coast influenced. I admit I don’t know what “southern” hardcore really sounds like, but if it’s like will to live then there must be an awesome scene down there. They have a CD out on spookcity. I need to get a copy of it.
hoods: I will admit now that I’ve never listened to this band. I’ve gotten copies of their CD and newer put it in… I had heard tons of opinions that turned me off (I think I was confusing them with the warriors too) and with the 100+ CDs I get a month, there was always something better to listen to. I sort of wish I hadn’t done that cause they were good. Plus, they had a big honking banner. West Coast hardcore. I can see why they are touring with WTL. Compared to them, they were a much smaller band size wise. The singer spent the set running around on the floor mixed in with the dancers. I was amazed at all the people that knew all the songs. Lots of large bodies moving fast in the audience and singing along.
ramallah: out of a scale of
0-
10 on a normal band set, that was a
9.8. on the ramallah scale, that was a
7. Ramallah is so awesome live that they make their own scale. This set was a little bit thin and short from the last time I saw them. They just played all their “hits” and got off the stage quickly. I’m not sure if it’s cause of the vicious tackling that rob took from colin of Arabia or not… but their set was over WAY too soon. They had a new guy on keys which was awesome live for the new stuff, but they were missing the guy from premonitions of war. He was obviously the originator of all the feed back the last time they were there. With out this thick over lying layer of dread, some of the tension which made their whole set amazing last time was missing. Still, I’m being a tough customer here since I was singing along to every word of every song and loved every minute of their set.
death before dishonor: another crazy set from these guys. I was afraid they would get a little over shadowed by ramallah when I heard they were playing after, but they weren’t. Since they’ve been touring, they played really tight and even b-roll was hopping around. They played not a long set but enough for people to enjoy themselves, but they sort of cut off at the end…more in a minute about that. They played a sick of it all cover and got people to do a circle pit around the poles. During all their songs there were a bunch of pile ups and people jumping off things. Then towards the end, all the doods in the crowd started to bro out and take off their shirts all at once. I can’t think of anything worse that a bunch of sweaty doods.. unless those sweaty doods start taking their shirts off. Why did they take off their shirts? Why did DB4D cut off their set at the end? Well…
So they started yelling for “Buddha”. At this point I was still “d’uh” thinking they meant another guy band Buddha who was also there at the show. They finally pulled Blood For Blood’s Buddha out from the bar and White Trash Rob (also of b4b) preceded him up the stairs. Brian stepped back, leaving Rob and Buddha standing in front of the crowd backed up by DB4D.
Seeing these 2 back on stage, together again.. it was awesome. They cut right into Paper Gangster. The crowd rolled over each other and rushed around the stage singing their hearts out. Rob’s mic kept cutting out, but it didn’t matter a single bit. He could have just put the damn thing down and the crowd continued chanting along with the words that a lot of these kids grew up on. This could easily have been 10 years ago in a small club in Anywheres, Massachusetts. Right then, we were reliving part of our past together. This is the thing that keeps us going. This is our passion. This is our release. And just like that, the song was done and we were transported back from nowheresville to Brockton, watching what might be the last time we see blood for blood (well, until the giant reunion whenever that ends up happening and you know it will happen).
remembering never: I had heard that a lot of the crowd has left on their other dates once they came on. I’d say the crowd was just about cut in half for them. It didn’t matter. They people that did stay, danced. They played a lot of songs from the new CD and only like 3 old songs. They played a bunch of tracks from the new CD which is a lot more brutal that their other CDs. There are barely any singy-singing parts in it at all. The new CD comes out next week, but I got a copy sent to me and it’s really good.
