6/9/01: American Nightmare, Little League, the Impossibles, the Movielife, Grade at the Rotunda
(Picture of Wess taken by Eric X. Edge) These were actually two different shows but I am going to write about them together, since they were all part of my crazy hectic day. On this Saturday, the following things were scheduled to happen: My mom's gradaution and party, A.N. show, Grade show, Rudy's graduation party, Jamie's graduation party and Gwyn's graduation party. I really wanted to go to all of them, but obviously I couldn't. So I woke up, ate, took a shower and me and Jamie went to my mom's graduation which was at a church not too far away. After that there was a little reception in the church basement but I said we really had to go in order to get everywhere else we needed to be. We went back to the house and got changed in two seconds. Then we ran to make the 4:15 train to 30th St. We had to walk over to 40th (Booo) but Jonny, Shaun and Dan saw us at about 37th (?) and picked us up. Joe, Jesse, Brian, Jude, Cheech, Eric and George were already there. Some people were grilling some hot dogs and stuff outside of the Rotunda. I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to pay 8 bucks just to see A.N., because The Nerve Agents had cancelled and I had already missed all the other bands. I figured I would pay since I was already down there and eveything. But Jamie didn't wanna pay, and neither did Dan. So I told Jamie I'd give her 5 bucks and I told Dan he didn't have to pay me back for the Grade ticket for a while. That convinced them. There weren't many people inside, so that was kinda cool. The first thing I did was buy a smaller size of the shirt I had bought last time they played. I'm going to sell the bigger one on Ebay, because it doesn't fit me well. Then I talked to Rosemary for a few minutes before the band came on. Me, Jamie and Dan stood on the side. I guess none of us really felt like wearing ourselves out so early in the day. American Nightmare played for I think 16 minutes. That's 50 cents per minute! Oh well. They played good as usual except that Wess, the singer, will sometimes just stop singing. I guess he's out of breath or something, but it's weird. The kids who were there were tearing up the dance floor. It was fun to watch. We were forced out of the Rotunda after they played. Jamie, Brian, Dan and I went to Cavanaugh's to eat. I didn't want to spend all that money to sit down at a restaurant, tip the waitor, etc. but my stomach wasn't feeling too good so I didn't want anything fried or greasy. Mmm mmm grilled chicken wrap. Worth the money. We had fun just sitting there and talking for a while in the nice air-conditioning. We went back to the show at about 7:45. Chris was there, and so were about 15 billion people from my school. Annoying. We stood outside and talked during the first band. We went in to watch Little League though. Jamie, Dan and I watched from the Balcony. They were better than I expected a local band to be. I picked up their demo and a t-shirt. Watching from the balcony was pretty cool because you can see the whole crowd, and it's fun to watch the kids that are dancing. We went outside again after them because it was so hot. I didn't really care to watch the Impossibles anyway. Chris, Jamie and I got to talk for a while and Chris updated me on how his life has been going. We went in for the last couple Impossibles songs. They were alright. Nothing I could get into right away, but maybe if I had the CD or something. Then the Movielife came on. Jamie, Chris, Dan, Jude and I were right up front. They played lots of good songs and I really liked them. But goddammit, people keep jumping on my head. I got knocked over once and it hurt so bad that I was crying. Not like, boohoo, I got hit, but like, Motherfucker, this really hurts and tears seem to be coming out of my eyes. Of course after that I was continually hit. Also, there were a lot of idiots, one of which standing right behind me with sweaty armpits. Everytime it got quiet he would yell, "You guys are fucking awesome!" He also kept attempting to push ahead of me. Wrong-o. That kid will pay. After getting hit for the billionth time I decided to leave the front area and hopefully find Joe, since I wanted to stand with him the whole time but I couldn't find him in the beginning. That was my plan, but as soon as I left the crowded area, Movielife played my song: "Single White Female". I was mad since I had just left the front and wasn't going to go back. But since I couldn't find Joe, and the singer was giving the mic to people up front, I had to go back. He didn't even give me the mic though even though I was screaming for the song all night. I'm not a big fan of that guy. I went outside after the M-life and I realized how late it was!! How annoying. I had told my mom to pick us up at 11:15 because that's what time Grade was posted to be done at. We probably missed a lot of their songs because we had to leave early :( But they were great too. They played "Seamless" and "When Something Goes to Your Head" which were the two songs I really wanted to hear. I had a really fun night despite all the downs. I'd love to see Grade again sometime, and right now I am going to order one of their shirts from No Idea Records.
10/22/00: EDGE DAY 2000!! In My Eyes, Ten Yard Fight, Bane, The Killing Flame and Damage at the American Legion Hall in Haverhill, MA
Three words: BEST SHOW EVER! Brace yourself folks, this is going to be a lot of reading. Joe refers to this review as "Jackie's Edge Day Book". Heheh. I heard about In My Eyes breaking up months and months ago. At that point I officially decided that I would go to their last show if it were anywhere on the East Coast. I just assumed it would be in Boston, and at some point during the summer. This didn't turn out to be completely true. I found out that it was going to be in Haverhill, MA in October, conveniently on Jamie's birthday. I talked my mom into going up to Boston for the weekend for Jamie's birthday and getting a hotel for a couple nights. Of course I told her about the show too. She thought it sounded like a really good idea. Joe, Jesse, Brian and George had also planned on driving up the night before the show and sleeping in the car or something like that. Well, two things happened: Jamie couldn't go because of soccer and George changed his mind about going because of all the negative things about the trip (and believe me, there were many!!) I didn't want my mom to take vacation days just to take me up to Haverhill to see some bands play. I also didn't want to invite myself to go with Jesse (or sleep in his car Saturday night). Besides, Jesse hardly trusted his car to make it all the way up to MA., so I wasn't about to either. The solution to what wasn't much of a problem was that Jesse and I would drive up with Joe and Brian in my car and stay for just Saturday night in a hotel. I made reservations and got everything ready for the big weekend. Jesse and Brian came over Saturday afternoon to drop off Jesse's car for my mom to borrow. We had to first go to Ryan's Eagle Scout ceremony (Congratulations Ryan!) No offense to anyone in particular but, I couldn't wait to leave and get on the road. When we finally did it was about 7:30 and we had an apparent 6 hours of driving to do. I took the first shift and we made it up to Connecticut without stopping. We made good time too. Jesse took over from there. We got to drive on the famous Mass Pike, which just pleased me to no end. You can imagine the jokes made and how much they were dragged out. On Route 495 we saw a Jeep with an "XXX" sticker on the back windshield. We started chasing it and when we caught up with them we waved and gave them the metal sign and they gave it back. It was great. Instead of driving straight to the hotel, we wanted to drive to the hall and just make sure we knew we had the right address for the show the next morning. Joe bet me that the kids with the "XXX" sticker were going to the hall too. I said no. I was right. We got there and there weren't any campfires or mosh camps like there had been advertised on the internet. Bad news I guess, but we were in the right place so we were pretty happy. We drove back to our hotel and checked in, only to find out that our room had been given to someone else, and we had been upgraded to a suite! Yes! The room was unnecessarily large, and it's too bad we were only there to sleep because we didn't really utilize it for all it was worth. Oh well, it was still cool to be upgraded free of charge. Of course the whole time the four of us were having lots of fun just messing around and making jokes about everything, which is what it's all about. We woke up in the morning, got showered and dressed and drove through town to find a place to eat. We ended up eating in this tiny place called Jack's Diner, in which the waitress was surprised that we didn't know 'off the top of our heads' what we wanted to eat, and that we preferred to see a menu. Adorable, don't you think? I haven't even addressed the accents yet! Not car, but "caah". Not party, "paahty". Job, "Jo-ab". Boston, "Baah-stin". It was great. I hope and pray that someone I talked to there is telling people about my crazy accent right now. Ok so after we ate we headed over to the American Legion Hall, because we wanted to get there pretty early. When once again on 495, we saw a car with Shutdown, H2O and other hardcore stickers. We waved to them, and they were right behind us until we pulled into the parking lot of the Hall. We talked to them when we got out of our car. They were from North and South Carolina and their names were Joe, Sarah, Dan and Derek. They were some really nice kids. We decided to stick together since neither of us knew anyone else there. They drove for 16 hours! Whoa! I thought 6 was bad! So we were hanging out front of the hall when Jesse and I decided we needed to X up our hands for the occasion. That was pretty eventful. Kids were just running around, playing kick ball, sunbathing, causing tomfoolery. Lots of fun. When we got in line to go in, we saw there were rules posted on the door. These were the rules: No fighting. No drinking, smoking, or drugs (or druggies). No Yankees fans (or Mets). No GCF shirts. No standing still. No getting mad at people moshing. :) So we go inside and this place is not as big as I thought it would be. It was big long-ways, but not side-ways. Edge day merchandise was being sold, along with band merchandise and Bridge 9 stuff. I was really anxious to see the In My Eyes last show shirts. They turned out to be really cool. On the back there's a live shot and it says, "1997-2000: THIS WAS OUR TIME". Nice, huh? So the first event was watching the video of last year's Edge Day show, which was the last Ten Yard Fight show. That might have been cool except I definitely couldn't see so it was just an hour of hearing bits and pieces of TYF songs. When that was over we found out that the rumors of Bane replacing Fastbreak were true. That was good to hear, because we've all seen Bane in Philly and we thought it was pretty lame that kids hardly reacted to them. The first band to play was Damage, from Philly. Now the first time I saw Damage I thought they were really awesome and completely off the hook. This time, they were boring. I realized that it was only because the kids in Mass. didn't react to the at all. It was just very interesting to get a completely different point of view. The next band was the Killing Flame. They were ok, but they didn't fit in with the Mouthpiece-Bane-In My Eyes pattern so it made them less enjoyable. Next was Bane. Like I said, I was excited to see how kids in Mass. reacted to them. We had to wait a while, because Bane could not find their bass player. When they finally did they only had enough time to play 5 songs. What can I say about the kids other than THEY WENT FUCKING NUTS! Everyone rushed the stage, everyone danced, everyone sang along. Everyone loved Bane! Kids starting climbing up the speakers that were so close to the ceiling, they had to squat to jump off. Then they started hitting the ceiling and the panels began to fall through. Insanity. The last song they played was "Can We Start Again." The singer was like, "I don't even have to sing this one. CAN WE-" and instantaneously, the entire crowd picked it up with, "START AGAIN?! GO BACK TO WHAT IT MEANT BACK THEN?!" and continued to sing the rest of the song in its entirety. That gave me the chills. Seriously! And I'll quote Jesse, "This sounds corny, and I know it, but that's what hardcore is!" I couldn't agree more. One awesome performance by a band that I once thought was boring live. It must've been hard for Mouthpiece to follow that up. Kids were into them, but not nearly as much. I never heard them before that day, so I wasn't into them at all. Joe, Jesse and Brian were, I think. I was standing by myself at that point, and frankly I would've rather not seen them and gotten a head start on the way home. After they played I went up to the front for what I thought would be the final band, In My Eyes. The band came out on stage and I realized that they were playing "The Only Way" which is a Ten Yard Fight song. It took me a minute to actually realize what was going on! Ten Yard Fight was playing! The second I realized this I pushed my way right up to the front and was part of the Ten Yard Fight experience no one will ever be part of again. I usually don't try to get right up front for any band, unless it is a special song. This was just something that I knew I'd never be able to do again, so I fought my way up there, and I've got the bruises to prove it! :) So they played 5 awesome songs which I think are worth listing: The Only Way, Proud to be Straight, First and Ten, Back on Track and Hardcore Pride. I don't think I could've been happier than I was at the moment after they played. It was completely set in my mind that I would never get to see TYF in my life. BUT I DID! Ahh, still so happy about that. Those 10 minutes of music were worth the over ten hours spent on the road to get there. Of course we were all joking around about Ten Yard Fight getting back together and playing, but I don't know if any of us really thought it would happen. I know I didn't. In My Eyes came on next. They played well. They didn't seem too heart-broken about breaking up, and I actually couldn't tell you why they did. They played a lot of songs off both of their albums. Then, after I thought my day couldn't have gotten any better, Sweet Pete calls a special guest out onto the stage. He says, "For Edge Day, I wanted to get the most Straight Edge guy I knew. So, I called up my friend Slam." I looked at Jesse. Slam? Who the hell was that? Then he told me that Slam was John Porcell's stage name for PROJECT X! "Slam" came out on stage and the kids went INSANE, once again! They started pushing, running around and dancing as soon as he walked out. He tried to give a positive intro to the song he was about to do but people didn't want to hear it. He gave up and In My Eyes played Straight Edge Revenge with Porcell singing! Soooo awesome! That was yet another amazing moment that we were part of and will probably not happen again. I've never been more proud to be Straight Edge! So In My Eyes finished their set, and like I said they played well. They ended with practically everyone on stage singing along to This is Our Time. Nice way to end it. When they were done playing, I was glad because I don't think the show could've been any better, and I was tired as shit and wanted to go home. We stayed and talked to our friends from South Carolina for a little bit, and the guys gave them some Straight to the Point CDs. Then we went to Wendy's and got on our way home. We got lost at one point, and I couldn't have been more upset. Of course we got lost in the Bronx, at 3AM. Terrible. We didn't get home until 4:30 or something ridiculous like that. I went right to bed and took off school and work the next day. This experience was easily the most fun time I've ever had, and I'm so glad that I went with Jesse, Joe and Brian (even though they slept on the way home, bastards). We're definitely doing it again next year, no matter who is playing. If you're thinking about going next year, do it! Especially if you're straight edge. If you're anything like me you will get something wonderful out of it. (More pictures on the Pictures page.)
3/22/01: The Anniversary, Hot Rod Circuit, Hey Mercedes, Dashboard Confessional at the T.L.A.
Good show. I actually wasn't going to go, but then I found out everyone else wanted to, so I thought it woul dbe fun. Besides, I love the anniversary and Hot Rod Circuit. I went out to the bar with the people from my office that night after work. I stayed for about an hour, then took a cab over to the T.L.A. The show was dols out. I thought that was kind of weird. There was a really mixed crowd there though, so I guess it made sense. Anyway, George, Joe, Uni-Dan, Jesse, Shaun and Valerie were there. I wanted to buy shirts and Jesse owed me $36, so I figured he'd pay up. But noooo, he didn'thave the money! Haha, I really don't care- I was just giving him a hard time about it. But I did have to use the ATM and it had a $2.75 service charge! Can you believe that bullshit? So, Jesse owes me $38.75 now ;) OK, the first "band" to play was Dashboard Confessional. Hmm, I don't know how I feel about these guys (well, it's like one guy with an acoustic guitar, but at this show he had a couple people playing with him). Anyway, like I said, not sure how I feel. The music's okday, but I don't understand how it got mixed up into the punk.emo scence. A lot of people seemed to like it, but I couldn't get into it. Maybe I'll have to hear it on CD. Hot Rod Circuit was next. I love these guys! They totally rock live. My only complaint was that they didn't play long enough! Also, the fact that they played a few news songs, despite the less than enthusiastic response from the crowd to them. Next up was Hey Mercedes. One word: Boring. George liked them. I guess I might be able to appreciate them if I heard them on CD and was familiar with their stuff. But hearing them for the first time live while waiting to see the Anniversary? Boring. But that didn't last too long. The Anniversary eventually came out and opened with "D in Detriot", my favorite song!! They played so well, and that girl's voice is awesome live. The sound was really good, and like I said, they played really well. They played a couple new songs... one was 8 minutes long! Geez! Their finale was a medley of "The Boys Are Back in Town", "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Like A Virgin". This was the only part of the set that I thoroughly unenjoyed. It was just too too long and I was leaving at 10:30 and hoped to hear at least one more song off the album before I left. Oh well. They were still really excellent and I had a great time. I can't wait til they (and HRC!) put out new albums.
2/4/01: The New Amsterdams, Hot Rod Circuit at the North Star Bar
When I first heard about this show I flipped out. I was so excited, but also so scared that I wouldn't get tickets in time. I called for them right away and reserved tickets for me, Jesse, Dan and Jonny. Jesse decided not to go though, so Jude took his ticket. Dan and I met up with him, George and Cheech right before the show. When we got inside, we all bought shirts, and I bought one for Jamie. Then we went up into the balcony. it was at about this time that I realized the show was far from selling out. Oh well, I worried over nothing. It wouldn't be the first time. I also noticed that I didn't recognize anyone who was there. I guess hardly anyone knew about this show, or few people cared. We stood around talking for a while before the bands came out. For those who don't know, the New Amsterdams is Matt Pryor's (of the Get Up Kids) solo acoustic side project. He has an album out on Vagrant called, "Never You Mind". I think it's highly excellent. Hot Rod Circuit were playing an acoustic set for the occasion as well. So Matt and HRC were both on stage at the same time. They took turns playing songs back and forth. I thought that was a good idea. It kept things really exciting. The sound was so good, and the atmosphere was perfect. It was very intimite because there were so few people there, and those that were there really wanted to be there. It felt like we were hanging out with the guys on stage. They were funny, too. They kept cracking jokes. They both played some covers. Matt played "Out of Reach" and "Central Standard Time", along with "Girl Why'd You Run Away?". He also played what he said would probably be a new Get Up Kids song. HRC played so well too. The sound was just incredible. I am going to compare every show they play now to thisone. I don't think the other ones are gonna even come close though. The show ended with Matt and Hot Rod joining together to play "Proceed With Caution". It was a great ending to a great show!!
