Dizamn, am I tired. 5 1/2 hours of sleep does NOT do the body good.

That said, the show yesterday rocked. Props to xRaylinx for organizing it and all! Rock on!

Ok, so for anyone who read the TMI blog-posting yesterday, you’ll know that I went to a local hardcore show (in spite of being sick! espresso-packed drinks and Sobe do wonders for headcolds). I toted along my camera with me, because I thought I’d get some cool shots. I was pretty satisfied with the result. In the write-up below, all the pics are thumbnails that link out to larger versions of the images opening in new windows (if that annoys you, sorry… you’re going to have to deal. You can certainly just go here and browse all of them blindly. )

Note: I’m ok with you downloading these pics or whatever. But if you want to use them for any kind of publication, distribution, or anything outside of mySpace, *please* have some respect & credit me in a byline. I’ll gladly send you a copy of the original file — it’s higher resolution so you can do more with it. Thanks!

So I got there a little before 7pm. There were a lot of people hanging out outside & inside, sporting their hardcore-band-jackets/t-shirts, bandannas, jeans, gauged-out ears, and tattoos. I went upstairs and paid my cover, and saw my friend Todd. He and I chatted for a while and he gave me a demo for Rich Woman (the first band). Rock on. I offered to leave poop in his “Tips & Shit” jar, but he said he’d prefer change. I quickly ran downstairs, asked the Barista to make me whatever her favorite iced coffee was, left my tip, and ran back upstairs — the first band was getting ready to go on.

7pm’ish: Rich Woman (Local)
This band was an unbilled extra bonus.

Before they started playing their keyboardist had been sound-checking (or maybe just playing for fun) for a while. He kind of faded his way into a cool sounding rhythmic keyboard arpeggio using one of the synth pads from his Korg keyboard. The lights went out, and the band exploded into action. MAN have they got some energy. I was only able to get one decent pic of them b/c the lights were out (and I didn’t really remember I had my camera till they were half-done ). The band as a whole generally played facing the drummer — which reminded me a lot of the stories I heard about Jim Morrison during his first shows with the Doors. Their vocalist, Dante (pictured above-right), would kind of shuffle-scoot around the floor, it kind of reminded me of a flamenco dancer — but man, when he would bellow out a scream, you could see his neck and body straining! At one point the bassist’s (Nick?) bass input got fried, but someone was cool enough to lend him their bass. Right on.

When they finished, everyone left momentarily while Ghost of Maine set up, I kind of hung around for a while just watching them. The vocalist for Ghost of Main (I think it was him…if it wasn’t it looked like him) got on the drums at one point and TOTALLY rocked out with a crazy drum solo. They were up next.

7:40ish – Ghost of Maine (Indy/Muncie)

Ghost of Maine began with a keyboard arpeggio, much like the first band. They just totally exploded into action.

They had these cool coordinated slow body-rocking motions where they would all pull back in unison and rock forward onto their front foot simultaneously. The bassist (?) lost his hat from that a few times. Nick from Rich Woman had started dancing a little and he kind of ran/fell into the girl standing in front of me (GoM guitarist’s girlfriend) while I was lining up for a snap. They both fell into me right as I was hitting the shutter button. The result was this. Right on. We all had a laugh over that. They really rocked out the whole time. The vocalist was ALL OVER the place. He said several times between songs that he wanted people to come up and hang out after the played.Really cool / friendly guy. The lights were on for this performance so I was able to get lots of good snaps.

After their performance, I ran downstairs and got another espresso, then came back upstairs to see Rose over London setting up. I chatted with Sara at the Merch table — She and Emily (the girl that got knocked into me) gave me a GoM button. Rock on!

No idea p.m., Rose over London (Local, I think)

*fave!*

The first thing I noticed about these guys was that they were all a bit shorter than Ghost of Maine. Granted, *I* was shorter than most of Ghost of Maine’s members (they all looked 6′ plus), but it was just an interesting juxtaposition. That didn’t stop Rose over London from totally kicking ass though. Right after the first song, the singer & guitarist apologized if they weren’t quite as good since they were down one member. Apparently one of their two guitarists quit the band a week or so ago. That sucks : / They kicked ass anyways though. This band is where I got one of my fave pics this night: I got the guitarist, bassist, and Dante (from Rich Woman) all standing in a row in front of the painting. It was just by chance it turned out that way, but I thought it was damn cool.

When these guys finished playing I went back to the Merch table and chatted with Sara and her friend for a while, while we waited for Gwen Stacy to set up.

9ish p.m.: Gwen Stacy (Indy, I think)

Ever since I read the billing for this event, I was thinking “Where have I heard the name Gwen Stacy other than in reference to this band? And last night after the show I finally remembered: Gwen Stacy was the girl that Peter Parker originally fell in love with in Amazing Spider-Man. She was the blonde sweetheart of Flash Thompson, high-school jock extraordinnaire. She eventually left him for Parker, and was ultimately killed by the Green Goblin by getting chucked off a bridge. The movie (Spider-Man 1) kind of bastardized that plot by making it Mary Jane — but in the comic it was Gwen Stacy, and she definitely died.

Anyways, that’s neither here nor there. The band Gwen Stacy is definitely very much alive, definitely not blonde, and definitely not getting kidnapped by fictitious men riding flying mechanical bats.

Gwen Stacy is a Xian hardcore band, and they have both a vocalist frontman (who was wearing a dark blue hoodie [hood-up] and was very energetic) as well as a vocalist drummer. I was envious of the one guitarists hair. (I think it was the guitarist anyways). At first I didn’t realize they had two vocalists and it threw me for a loop when I heard someone screaming but saw the frontman with the mic by his side. Duh.

The vocalist for Ghost of Maine took over the very important role of cowbell (Will Ferrel and Blue Oyster Cult approves ), which he played with vigor, alongside the drummer/vocalist. The energy was so high during their set a lot of people were dancing, singing along, and at one point the cowbell-playing GoM vocalist was actually doing laps across the front of the stage area and back around behind the drummer. I narrowly avoided getting steam rolled a few times. It was wicked awesome.

Last Up
10pm’ish: Coraline (Local)

Coraline, a local band (I think) with some really strong convications with regard to veganism / animal cruelty, was last to play. At this point, people were still really hyped up and the energy level was through the roof from Gwen Stacy’s Performance. Many more people were unabashedly dancing, flailing their arms, legs, and bodies through the area in front of the band. If you’re reading this, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about — if you don’t… it looks kind of like this: hips dropped (so their knees were a little bent), with either feet planted in one spot and making like they’re punching/flailing at the the air (and whoever happens to be) in front of them, OR moving solidly in one direction (it looks like they’re on a fast moving sidewalk) while propelling their limbs from their body as quickly and repeatedly as possible. As a really gross over-simplification, think Tae-Bo but while really pissed off because someone just hooked up live electrodes to your genitals. [again... GROSS over-simplification there... it's a lot cooler than that sounds]

Anyways.

So they closed out the show — and a damn good show it was. I think at this point my ears were sufficiently glazed over from tinnitus and I was promising myself that next time I would wear ear plugs or something. I’d rather not be deaf this young. The fact that I was still kind of fighting off a cold didn’t help the ears either. I made my way out of there and headed back to my pad.

Overall, it was a wicked good show. Props again to Raylin for organizing this bidness. I’ll see you all down there on the 22nd.

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