Like most other people who got into pop-punk at the end of the 90’s, there are primarily two albums which got me into the genre: Blink 182’s Enema of the State and New Found Glory’s New Found Glory.
When I saw the announcement that New Found Glory was doing a 10 year anniversary tour behind that very album, I got tickets that same day.
The ages of people in the crowd ranged from 14 or 15 years old all the way through people who were probably just over 30. I was definitely happy to see people in the former age range coming to see a staple of this scene and understanding where bands like All Time Low got their influences.
The first band to really get the crowd’s blood flowing was Saves the Day. One fan in particular must have had his blood flowing a little more than everyone else – he tried to get on stage three times in a matter of minutes, and was promptly hauled off-stage. Chris Conley, Saves the Day’s lead singer, was quick to commend the fan with “Congats dude, you’re an idiot!“; much to the amusement of the audience.
Early in New Found Glory’s set, Chad Gilbert (who recently just released 3 free tracks to download as his side project, What’s Eating Gilbert?) commended everyone in the audience on making it to the show despite the poor weather. Apparently when they played in North Carolina, the snow stopped a lot of people from coming out.
Personally, there was no way I was missing this show.
In fact, with the amount of people at the venue, I’m not sure if anyone didn’t have that mindset.
New Found Glory’s set had a classic punk-rock feel to it. They tore through their entire self-titled album at breakneck speed; stopping maybe three times in between songs. One of those times was for Chad to wish ‘bon voyage’ to his thyroid, which you can see at the beginning of the ‘Vegas’ video clip embedded below.
In comparison to the fan above who was trying to get a little too interactive during Saves the Day’s set, the fans that wanted to interact with Jordan Pundik (lead singer) were well behaved and just really wanted a chance to sing along with him. Jordan was more than happy to accommodate the request, letting people have their say in the majority of songs they played. At one point, one of the fans crowd-surfed onstage and actually knocked him over…but he took it in stride and never missed a beat.
Following a very brief break after the completion of ‘Ballad For the Lost Romantics’, the band re-emerged. If the crowd needed any help getting excited about their return, Jordan did the trick by screaming “Alright Pittsburgh! Are you ready for round two?!”
The guys powered their way through five more tracks, spanning from Sticks and Stones through Not Without A Fight: ‘Understatement’, ‘Something I Call Personality’, ‘Catalyst’, ‘Don’t Let Her Pull You Down’, and ‘My Friends Over You.’
For anyone who may be curious, yes, Ian Grushka did manage to get shirtless…it took him all of two songs to do so.
I have a friend who said he was going to six – yes, SIX – dates on this tour. At first I couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing…now I’m pretty disappointed I didn’t get in on that plan as well.
Head on over to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Fan Page to check out the photos of the show, and more photos and videos from other concerts as well!
***Note: You do not need to have a Facebook account to be able to browse that page and view the photos and videos.
If you want a better look at the videos (the first half of ‘Vegas’ is a little dark because Chad requested the lights be turned down), hover your mouse over the video screen, and then click the ‘facebook’ logo in the top left hand corner when it appears. That will redirect you to the video on Facebook, which has a larger screen size for the video.
If you choose to embed any of the photos or videos from the show, please give credit where credit’s due.
Punk Goes Classic Rock Track Listing Released
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As first reported by SMNNEWS, here is the track listing for the upcoming Punk Goes Classic Rock. The ninth installment in the series, the album is slated for an April 27th release on Fearless Records.
1. Hit The Lights -- More Than A Feeling (Boston)
2. Versa Emerge -- Paint It Black (The Rolling Stones)
3. The Almost -- Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)
4. Mayday Parade -- We Are The Champions (Queen)
5. The Summer Set -- Rock ‘n Roll All Nite (KISS)
6. We The Kings -- Caught Up In You (.38 Special)
7. A Skylit Drive -- Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) (Journey)
8. I See Stars -- Your Love (The Outfield)
9. Pierce The Veil -- (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)
10. Forever The Sickest Kids -- Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
11. The Maine -- Pour Some Sugar On Me (Def Leppard)
12. Envy On The Coast -- All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
13. Every Avenue -- Take Me Home Tonight (Eddie Money)
14. Never Shout Never -- Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
15. blessthefall -- Dream On (Aerosmith)
As also posted on NoiseCreep, 80’s band Dokken’s original lineup is back together and working on new material. In other news, no one under the age of 40 gives a crap and eighty-five percent of those people don’t even know who Dokken is.
Here is the video for Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me.’ I was originally going to put up The Maine’s cover of the song; but then I remembered that their version is pretty awful.
Def Leppard -- Pour Some Sugar On Me
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
The crowd at the Pre-Atticus Metal Tour 2 show with Unearth, Veil of Maya, Early Graves, Ascend the Fallen, and Hollowpoint is what I wish the crowd would have been like at Haste the Day (see our Haste the Day Concert Review).
As you can see by the tour flyer above, Armed for Apocalypse was supposed to be on the bill – I have no idea what happened there.
The first two bands – Hollowpoint and Ascend the Fallen – are both local bands. I wouldn’t compare Hollowpoint to Haste the Day overall, but I would compare them to HTD in the sense that they were a metal band that did harmonize.
Ascend the Fallen reminded me of All Shall Perish. The lead singer’s appearance, his hand motions and overall on stage presence, the songs’s vocals…all very similar to ASP when I saw them over the summer with Blessthefall and August Burns Red.
I don’t really know to say about Early Graves. If you are into that whole thrash metal/grindcore/whatever genre, give them a spin. Personally they weren’t really my style. That being said, if you are a fan of heavy music don’t count them out immediately – maybe I am just behind the learning curve.
The first band to whip the crowd into a frenzy was Veil of Maya. Personally, I had not heard of them before the show (the bands I had heard of on the Atticus Metal Tour 2 aside from Unearth were all – ironically – not on the pre-tour dates) but I was definitely in the minority on that; there were plenty of people there wearing Veil of Maya gear.
They are described as a hybrid between metal, death metal, and metalcore – a blend that is much more my style than a band like Chesea Grin; who are just straight up brutal death metal. Hailing from Chicago, they definitely knew how to work the crowd and didn’t hesitate in getting plenty of circle pits going throughout their set.
Overall, they weren’t necessarily anything ground-breaking (is any new band in this scene?) but – as my buddy who attended the concert with me pointed out – it was easy to see why people into that style of music would be fans of Veil of Maya.
Speaking of working the crowd, Unearth was in a league of their own. As you can see by the video I embedded below, the crowd was absolutely insane for their entire set. The madness you see below at the start of their set never relented for the full hour they played.
Their set consisted of a mix of newer and older songs, everything from The March’s ‘My Will Be Done’ back to ‘My Heart Bleeds No Longer’ off of their 2001 album, The Stings of Conscience. The Atticus Metal 2 Tour has a ton of dates across the country, so when they come around your area I highly suggest you check them out. Alongside sets performed by All That Remains, they put on the best metal performance I have seen in quite some time.
Before Unearth even took the stage, my buddy said that if Trevor Phipps (Unearth’s lead singer) had any kind of stage presence, he was going to be able to bring the roof down with this crowd. The roof stayed in one piece above our heads throughout their set…barely.
To check out photos from the show and see Veil of Maya perform their new song, ‘Unbreakable’, go to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Fan Page
***Note: You do not have to have a Facebook account to be able to browse that page and view the photos and videos.
For more information on Hollowpoint, visit the Hollowpoint MySpace page
For more information on Ascend the Fallen, visit the Ascend the Fallen MySpace page
For more information on Early Graves, visit the Early Graves MySpace page
For more information on Veil of Maya, visit the Veil of Maya MySpace page
For more information on Unearth, visit the Unearth MySpace page or the New Unearth Website
Special thanks goes out to Opus One Productions for giving us tickets to the show.
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
“Amazing.”
It’s the word that Josh Jenkins, lead singer of Green River Ordinance, used to describe his experience to me aboard Sixthman’s The Rock Boat X last month.
Coincidentally, it’s also the same exactly word I would use to describe the last song performed at their show; a collaboration between Green River Ordinance and Sleeperstar. The group effort had the two bands covering Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin’ (you can find it embedded below). Props to both Josh and Sleeperstar’s Chris Pearson (vocals/guitar/piano) for their bonus verses.
I had first heard of Green River Ordinance when I went on The Rock Boat IX. I didn’t know anything about them prior to that, but after I saw them perform three or four times (not uncommon to see a band perform multiple times on that cruise) I was sold. The people in the crowd who were not won over by songs like ‘Goodbye LA’, ‘Out of My Hands’, and ‘Different (Anything at All)’, were surely won over by their cover of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).’
Club Cafe was a very intimate setting, with only about 40 people or so in attendance. Don’t let that small number fool you though – 40 people inside Club Cafe means that the place turns into a Standing Room Only venue, as I discovered when I walked in. In fact, Jamey Ice (guitarist) told me after the show that their show the following evening in Akron, Ohio, was sold out. The night before, in New York, they had played to 300+ people.
Unfortunately, I missed Sleeperstar’s set; but garnering the fan reaction after the show, it is definitely a band that anyone who likes Green River Ordinance and the alt/rock genre should check out. Fan after fan was coming up to the merch table, telling them how much they enjoyed their set, and buying their album, To Speak, To Love, To Listen.
All the guys in both of the bands are really cool – I had already met a few of the guys from Green River Ordinance because of the cruise – and are willing to talk to all their fans after the show and sign autographs/take pictures, etc.
The guys from Sleeperstar were kind enough to give me an autographed copy of To Speak, To Love, To Listen, so expect a review of them soon.
Here is a link to our previous Green River Ordinance Review.
There are a few more videos that I uploaded to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Fan Page, including an acoustic version of the band’s next single, ‘On Your Own’, and Josh performing the song he wrote for his friend’s wedding, ‘Endlessly.’ I also posted photos from the show on there as well.
***Note: You do not have to have a Facebook account to be able to browse that page and view the photos and videos.
For more information on Green River Ordinance, visit the Green River Ordinance Website and the Green River Ordinance MySpace page.
For more information on Sleeperstar, visit the Sleeperstar Website and the Sleeperstar MySpace Page.
Special thanks goes out to Opus One Productions for giving us tickets to the show.
All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.
