Show Review: Set Your Goals, Comeback Kid – Pittsburgh, PA – 5/6/2010

The size of the crowd was somewhere in-between the Haste the Day concert and the Unearth and Veil of Maya Atticus Metal Tour 2 crowd. I was very glad about that, since the Haste the Day show could have been so much better if there hadn’t been a total of about 14 people in the crowd.

The first band to take the stage was Smart Bomb, a band from Massachusetts that wouldn’t be out of place in a show alongside Lagwagon and Millencolin. They are pretty much a straight-ahead, no holds barred punk band. Their music translates pretty well live, so if you are a fan of the whole skate-punk/’classic punk’ (for lack of a better term) sound, definitely give them a look. Find out more about them at the Smart Bomb MySpace Page.

Next up was Title Fight, a band that I had checked out on YouTube earlier in the day. They seemed like more of a pop-punk type band from the song I heard on there, but live in concert they were anything but. From a quick check of their MySpace, they sound like they’ve taken some cues from Set Your Goals and added a bit more of the hardcore influence into the mix. I personally feel that their tunes don’t translate very well live. Then again, the guys have toured now with both Four Year Strong and Set Your Goals, so maybe they were just having an off-night. Check out their tunes on the Title Fight MySpace Page.

Next on the bill were the Canadian hardcore band Comeback Kid. I’ve always heard a lot of really good things about this band, but – to my own admission – never got around to checking them out. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a perfect example of a traditional (in the ‘classic’ sense of the word, not the ‘boring’ sense) hardcore band. They tore through their set at breakneck speed, but no one was complaining. They were the first band that truly got the circle pits going and the hardcore kids doing their crazy moves. If you don’t know what I mean by ‘crazy moves’, just watch the video below (FYI: I have never seen giving a piggy-back ride in anyone’s dance move repertoire. Dunno what that’s all about).

They had a TON of fans in the audience – so much so that we were actually waiting to see if people came specifically to see them and would be leaving after their set. One guy had the brilliant idea during the set to fling himself backwards into the crowd…he then promptly landed right on his head. I thought they were gonna have to stop the show because the kid had seriously injured himself, but he either got extremely lucky or the adrenaline kicked in pretty hard. Either way, I’m sure he woke up with quite a headache. They also announced during their set that they had titled their new record Symptoms and Cures. For more info on them, head to the Comeback Kid MySpace Page.

Set Your Goals finally took the stage, and if you have read our previous Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong, and Fireworks Show Review, then you know that Matthew pretty much nailed their performance. Matt and Jordan delivered a very high energy set as they tore through songs that were both old and new. In fact, at one point Matt announced that they were about to play a song that they hadn’t played on tour in three years – their cover of ‘Do You Still Hate Me?’ by Jawbreaker. I thought they put on an awesome show, and their dual vocals worked really well live. They are definitely going to make a lot of people happy on Warped Tour this year, that’s for sure. If you haven’t seen them live in concert, I highly recommend you go see them when they come to your area. Or go to Warped Tour. Or both…that’s my plan. To see more about Set Your Goals, check out the Set Your Goals MySpace Page.

For those of you who have been fans for awhile, I’ll leave you on this note:

All in all, it must really suck to be Four Year Strong right now.

To see the photos from this show (and the others aforementioned) visit the Outsider Vocals Facebook Page (are they still called ‘fan pages’ at this point?).

If you don’t feel like doing that, make sure to at least hit that ‘Like’ button over on the right sidebar!

Special thanks goes out to Opus One Productions for giving us tickets to the show.