A Better Place, A Better Time - Concert Review

Review of the 'Thieves in the Night' Tour on Sunday, December 9th, 2019 at the House of Blues in Boston

Dan P

Dan P (center with glasses and curly hair) with his band 'Dan P and the Bricks'

I had no idea who this guy was going in or that he even had a band. We were running a little late, but we still managed to make it on time for his set. He went on at 7:30. We showed up, and just as we showed up, there was Dan P walking on stage with an acoustic guitar. This was definitely one of the most entertaining acoustic sets I've seen, and certainly the most entertaining solo set I've seen. He filled time in between songs with hilarious banter, and he even put a comedic spin on his otherwise serious songs. Some songs covered serious social or political issues, and he was like "This is a happy song." He just seemed to be an average dad having fun on stage, but Dan P proved to be more than that. He could handle the crowd well and managed to make almost the whole venue laugh. The highlight was the last song when someone asked him to play 'Freebird.' He then played a different song, but dedicated it to a girl in the front named Sarah, the alleged heckler. There was a line about being 40 and balding, which made the place erupt with laughter. Dan even laughed at that one too. Well done, Dan. Well done.

Streetlight Manifesto

Oh boy. Where do I even begin with this one? The band unexpectedly came on at 8:30, even though we were anticipating 9:00. The wait felt like nothing, somehow. They came on and opened with 'With Any Sort Of Certainty,' and the whole floor burst out into a giant mosh pit filled with energy. Everyone was jumping, and everyone was singing. We were all having such a good time throughout the entire performance. The band took fans on a wild journey that covered material from all five of their albums, including the covers album '99 Songs of Revolution Vol. 1.' Highlight songs included 'A Better Place, A Better Time,' known as one of the band's more notable singalong songs, and fan-favorite 'We Will Fall Together,' possibly the band's most popular song. The band performed 18 songs, filled with trumpet screeches, sax solos, and "WOOP WOOP" calls from vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Tomas Kalnoky.

There are many stories I have to tell about this concert, despite it being only about an hour and a half. I'll tell you what I can remember at the moment. I remember a lot of alcohol being spilled on me at the start of their performance. I remember everybody singing every word of the songs AND singing all the horn parts for the songs, too. I remember crowd-surfing a couple times. One of those times, I told my brother and some other guy to "crowd-surf me around the circle pit." They picked me up and ran me around the circle pit for about half a rotation before tossing me onto the crowd in front of them. I remember my brother and I doing this thing where we hold onto each other's hands and spin in circles in the mosh pits, and we had people pushing us to spin faster. I remember there were multiple times when the pit opened up really wide, and everyone charged at each other when the band started playing again.

I need to talk about the band's performance a little bit, too. This band has one of the most musically well-put-together performances I've ever heard. Each of the members (two saxophones, trumpet, trombone, bass, drums, guitarist/vocalist) gives their all to make their performance sound good. The horns section also provides backup vocals when needed. They, oddly enough, don't talk in between songs. There's just a constant flow of music, so the band doesn't lose their flow, nor does the crowd. The horns section is a real highlight of this band, as they provide some catchy melodies in every song in the band's catalog. They played a couple of my favorites, 'The Littlest Things' and 'Watch it Crash.' One of the ones I really wanted to hear, 'Would You Be Impressed?' was not performed, but that's perfectly fine. This band could play any songs, and I would be very satisfied.

Here is a video of the performance from the show (mosh pit example around 2:46):

Thank God It's Friday

Review of Thanx-Killing Fest on Saturday, November 30th, 2019 at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts

Light the Torch

This band is known because of frontman Howard Jones, who used to be in the popular American melodic metalcore band Killswitch Engage. I do like Killswitch Engage. I do not like Light the Torch, despite listening through every song they have released. Their performance was okay, but it was nothing special. Nothing about me stuck out about the instrumentation at all. I could hardly hear Howard's vocals because he had his hand firmly grasping the head of the mic. The crowd didn't seem into the music much. One thing I, my brother, and my friend did notice was how crowded the venue was during their set. The whole venue was packed and oversold. This stuck out to me more than the band's flat performance.

Fit For A King

This is the fourth time I've seen this band, and each time they continue to deliver a highly energetic performance. Vocalist Ryan Kirby is always yelling at the crowd to do some crazy stuff. His vocals are always on point, as were the backing vocalist's (also the bassist, I believe). This is one of those bands that is just pure fun to listen to, with hard-hitting breakdown after hard-hitting breakdown. The crowd was ready to party during their set, and they showed up. Circle pits, push pits, crowd surfers - they were there, and only getting hyped up for the next band. The setlist for this band, might I add, was pretty good. I mean, I love the new stuff. I like 'Deathgrip,' their previous album. They only played stuff from these two, however. I would've loved to hear their song "Slave to Nothing" so I could yell out "I'M A SLAVE, I'M A SLAVE TO NOTHING, UGH!" I definitely recommend seeing this band live, if you can.

Ice Nine Kills

If you've read my previous blogs, it's no secret I like these guys a lot. They need no introduction. Well, actually, they thought they did. Before they went on stage, they had a massive curtain blocking the stage with a movie-rating projection on it similar to one that you'd see prior to a movie trailer, but in their own style. It read "IX: PSYCHOS ONLY." After what felt like forever, the band finally came on, playing the intro back-tracking to the song 'Thank God It's Friday' before dropping the curtain and exploding with some crushing instrumentals. They went on to play 12 songs from their newest album 'The Silver Scream,' including the brand-new deluxe edition songs, 'Your Number's Up' and a cover of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.' They also played five songs from 'Every Trick in the Book,' including the ballad 'Tess-Timony' and my favorite song by them 'Me, Myself and Hyde.' They also pulled out an old song on this tour, another one of my favorites by them by the name of 'The Fastest Way to a Girl's Heart Is Through Her Ribcage.' This song had not been performed for three years prior to this tour.

I feel like I need to talk specifically about their stage show here, too. This was my ninth time seeing this band, They'd undergone major lineup changes since I've first seen them in 2016, leaving vocalist Spencer Charnas as the only member I've seen perform with the band all nine of those times. However, every new band member was completely immersed in the band's horror-movie-themed show. With some songs on the setlist, the band took a couple minutes off stage to change their outfits. Notably, Spencer would dress as different horror movie antagonists. He dressed up as Michael Myers for 'Stabbing in the Dark.' He dressed Ghostface for 'Your Number's Up,' which also saw him sneak up on a mannequin-looking girl on stage and "kill" her as part of the show. The craziest costume was when he dressed up as Pennywise for their song 'IT is the End.' Spencer was in full costume and makeup for this one and even pulled out the clown horn for the song.

Please do yourself a favor and see this band. They put on a killer show.

Welcome to the Private Room - Counterparts Concert Review

Chamber

These guys were the first ones on. My brother and I thought the following band was on first, but we were wrong! We got there pretty early, but they eventually went on and played for 25 minutes. The band was really good. Hard-hitting breakdowns, heavy instrumenals. Everything about them seemed pissed off and angry. This was apparently the last night of the tour, too, and the vocalist had mentioned on Twitter that his throat hurt pretty bad by the end of the tour. Regardless, he did a great job. There were a few people swinging arms during their set. One guy would occassionally come over and start wailing on the guy next to me. No idea why. I guess that's a "mosh pit" at hardcore shows.

END

Next up was END. I didn;t think this band played shows, but I guess they do. They have one EP released in 2017 by the name of 'From the Unforgiving Arms of God.' They also played for 25 minutes. I like this band, and I know their material a little bit. BUT, they played some new songs! All of them sounded pretty good! Mosh pit was just as uneventful as the Chamber's. . . until the breakdown of their last song, 'Necessary Death.' When this breakdwon hit, the whole floor erupted. My brother, my friend, and I were all scared. I remember a guy did a stage dive, and he was punching people as he was crowd surfing. It looked like he was swimming on top of the crowd. The whole pit area was just a massive brawl at this part. We stayed away from that. Glad I got the chance to see these guys.

Varials

This is one of the two bands I'd seen prior to this show. Apparently, my mom's co-worker filled in on guitar for thi band, so that was cool. I also have a windbreaker from this band for their new album 'In Darkness.' They kill it every time. Lots of energy from every band member. They all seem like they're into the music. They're all nice people and that shows in their stage presence. It was definitely cool to hear the new songs live, especially 'South of One' with the vocalist of Counterparts having a guest feature. Mosh pit was the same thing as the last two, except by this point, the room was packed. There was a lot of two-stepping, a form of hardcore dance that I'm actually not sure how to describe. I wish they'd played E.D.A., but they played Empire of Dirt, so I was satisfied with that one.

Stray from the Path

This is a band I don't like too much. Their new album is phenomenal, but everything before save for one album (of I think seven or eight) isn't great. In a live setting, they were surprisingly pretty good. The guitarist and bassist looked like they were 40 year-old Brooklyn natives, because I'm pretty sure they are. The vocaliast looked and sounded like a 35 year-old version pissed-off version of Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. The performance was solid overall, though. I expected a political speech, but I didn't get much of one thankfully. They did play their song 'Goodnight Alt-Right,' which is such a bad song. They played 'Kickback' and 'Fortune Teller' though, two high-energy songs. They filmed a music video during one of the songs, too. I forget which one. I think they're using clips from all different shows from the tour to string together one music video.

Counterparts

This is the band we primarily came for. The tour was named after their 2018 EP 'Private Room.' Ironically, they released a new album during this tour. They played four new songs, I'm pretty sure, and three from the last one, 'You're Not You Anymore.' The performance this band put on was phenomenal. They sounded so together and coherent. They had great energy, even for the last night of the tour. Vocalist Brendan Murphy delivered a flawless vocal performance. During the song 'Swim Beneath My Skin,' I did a stage dive - my only one for the night. When I ran across the stage, I put my hand on Brendan so he didn't back into me and fall. As I jumped off the stage, he said "Banana Man," since I was wearing my button-down banana shirt. Of course, someone jumped on top of me, and we both fell to the floor. I got rug burn, and I still have it as of the time of writing this blog - almost a week and a half after the concert. I would definitely recommend seeing this band. They deserve the support. As they left the stage, Brendan said, 

"The Private Room is now closed. Thank you all for coming."