One show per month for February, June, July, August and October and three! in September. I thought summer time would be have seen more shows and I'm really surprised that I saw 3 in Sept given how busy things get around here (school and holidays).
There was a huge merch line, and some killer merch. Love the bright orange color, which reminds me of an old
metal/hardcore album cover... Toxic Narcotic, Trip Hammer?
Lots of amazing t-shirts being worn as well:
- Loads of Tree shirts
- Raw Radar War in the style of Bolt Thrower
- OLW Teeming Billions (from the Julie Duffy fund raiser)
Plus
I missed Scissorfight but caught Leeway and Killing
Time. Eddie Leeway is still hanging in there, 2 years with cancer. Did not look good but he was still doing his
thing. KFG. This is my second time seeing Killing Time in 6 months. Great band, crowd was really
into them and I get a kick out of the lead singer (aka The Teletubby). Don't forget: "duct tape works on
everything", he says as the guitar player is repairing his strap mid show.
Yours truly is in the above shot
SBC played for about an hour and 15 minutes. Great
set list covering the whole purple album and a wide range from Let in Life and the 'red album', plus locked unit 98. Jett crowd
surfed on me a bunch of times and I got the mic for one instance on Disco Inferno - Burn Baby Burn!!
Also ran into Big Mike and when he picked me up (as he does), I think the crowd was getting ready for a fight LOL. Jett finished the show from the floor in the pit and then
hung out afterwards to shake hands, take photos etc. What a guy.
I missed the opener "Population II". Seems like a cool band from Montreal. Old sound, good playing from what I've heard on Spotify.
The crowd had a lot of energy and a big age range. Some mild crowd surfing and lots of bouncing and pogo up front. There was also a young guy with a Bim Skala Bim shirt!
A tight rhythm section was the main draw to get me out of the house on a work night.
The Oh Sees has dual drummers and they were amazing. Sometimes they played totally in sync and sometimes one played the back beat and while the other played fills over it. Both had Vistalite sets and Paiste cymbals, which really matched the aesthetic and sound of the band.
The bass player was giving me major "Joe Lalli" vibes. He laid a solid foundation and groove while being pretty mellow on the side of the drummers.
Dwyer had a great overdrive fuzzed out guitar sound and I'm always a fan of the high playing position. “Ooo wooo!”
As for Royale itself - it's tattered, old and very unwelcoming for bands and guests. They take a cut of the merch. They had the most old school open urinal setup that I thought I was in Fenway pissing in a trough. No ADA/accessibility accommodations, the balcony was closed and the bouncers outside gave off a late 90s goon vibe. Compare Royale to Roadrunner, which has really set the bar high for a medium/large size club in all respects.
Here's the first in a new series, called "Ghost of Shows Past" which tries to document shows I've seen but have forgotten the details of, or forgotten about all together.
Metallica @ Great Woods June 11 1994
I was cleaning out my closest today and found a bunch of old ticket stubs. This one is in the worst condition but what an important show. Metallica along with Aerosmith and GnR were the first bands I was deeply into. Unlike some other "ghost" shows, I still remember seeing Metallica at Great Woods, sitting on the lawn and having a blast.
As for the date of the show - Metallica has a huge set list archive on their site which says they played Mansfield in 1994 and 1998. I'm pretty sure it was 1994 and waiting for Jeff to confirm.
The Who's Tommy & Aerosmith 1994
This one is a special twofer which goes back to when I first start dating my girlfriend and future wife, Caitlin.
We first saw Aerosmith at Great Woods in August 1994 with a bunch of friends and were not dating at all, but I had my eye on her 😉. I was also really excited to see Aerosmith, who was at this point my favorite band. I liked local bands and had collected all of their albums on cassette. I still think Kramer and Whitford make a fantastic rhythm section.
In September 1994, Caitlin and I had our first date at the infamous Green Day concert at the Hatch Shell. Had a riot and a lot of fun. I knew she was the person for me after that.
Two months later in November 1994, she takes me out to see The Who's Tommy musical at the Wang. We also saw Phantom of the Opera at some point during our early years. She certainly expanded my views on other performing arts.
Mighty Mighty Bosstones @ Worcester Centrum Oct 28 1995
This is a true Ghost of a show. I had no idea I saw the Bosstones at the Centrum (I guess called the Memorial Auditorium back in the day?).
I guess it's easy to forgot a show like this in a huge arena when I've been to several hometown throwdowns, including the one that got recorded for the live record 🤘
John Stanier is one of my favorite drummers, so I was PRETTY excited to see Battles. I got there at doors open to get a front row view from the balcony.
The headliner was Mr Bungle, who always brings out a diverse crowd, as witnessed by the fashion observed from the balcony:
T-Shirts of such bands as DRI, SNFU, Anthrax, COC, Pantera, Jinjer, Rob Zombie, Tree, Bad Brains, Health ("sad music for horny people"), Sam Black Church, Sonic Youth, Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, Rough Trade, Dillenger Escape Plan, and multiple Zappa shirts.
Plus: 3 Mohawks, 2 sets of animal ears, 1 white face paint, 1 tye dye shirt and 1 red dress.
And the winner of them all, a Tim & Eric themed Bungle album cover:
The Battles set was top notch and Stanier's playing was out of this world. He continues to rock a long sleeve button down dress shirt, which is drenched with sweat by the end of the show.
I wish his snare mix was a bit louder but otherwise no complaints. Well except for Ian making a joke about Roadrunner being a "sports" name for a music club. Does he not know the official rock song of The Commonwealth?
It's nice to see Lars paying homage to Stanier, using a similar yellow Tama kit for their tour with Pantera.
It was my first time seeing He Is Legend and also first time in club Taffeta, in an industrial area of Lowell. You know it's a good sign when a freight train is rolling in at 8pm right next to the club.
The lead singer has been having some health problems and missed the showed last night but was here at 50% and NOT vomitting.
Dennis, Jim and I were right up front were the vocal mix was shiite so his 50% energy didn't matter. Nonetheless, the band SHREDDED. Absolutely killed it. Bluesy rock n roll with heavy metal riffs and killer drumming.
The drummer Jesse played a sweet vistalite kit. He was a hard hitter, lots of Bonham-esque tom fills, well placed double bass and cymbal chokes. He laid the backbone for all the songs.
The lead singer, Schuylar, was a pretty groovy dancer.
I’m here on a business trip during the boring part of the week - Sunday to Wednesday. After some Facebook advice, I went to Frenchman Street and found this good quartet playing modern Jazz originals and IIRC a tongue in cheek cover of “Just the two of us”. The small crowd was into it and grooved attentively. Entry was $5 plus 1 drink minimum. I'll take it.
The last day of my trip I got to visit the Jazz Museum, which had an exhibit about the history of drums (above, a Ludwig pedal from early 1900s).
Even better I got to visit Congo Square, which is were all modern music started. Amazing stuff.
Here's another post in the series "My Bands". At college I found anyone who was really into music. Punk, metal, hardcore, ska. Many of us were DJs and ran the college radio station. And we also would make ad-hoc cover bands. In '98 and '99 we put on a punk rock xmas party in our campus house/dorm thing. This pic below is the first instance.
On the left, my boy Sol on bass rocking the Black Sabbath shirt. In the middle is Matt on guitar who would later go on to play in Missionshifter with me. And cut off on the right is Chris, also a future Missionshifter member. I can't remember what song this might have been, but it was hella fun.
Another one from the archives. Here is a pic of my very first band, "Horse of a Different Colour" (with the English spelling to be fancy)
This band started with me on drums and my high school friend Will Kerr (sp?) on bass. I can't remember the girl on vocals but she was friends with Will. This portrait shows us in a Emo stance.
I think we only played cover songs and we never played out. Will was probably 2 years ahead of me so my the time we got rolling he graduated. This was probably around 1994 or 1995.
Some of the songs we rocked:
Here Comes Your Man by The Pixies
These Boots by Op Ivy (who was covering Nancy Sinatra)
Negative Creep, Floyd the Barber, Son of Gun (Vaselines) by Nirvana
To this day, my neighbor is still jealous that I got to play drums and be in a band!
From an older, wiser musician - if you can avoid it, don't ever sell equipment. I still wish I had that awesome dark red/purple Tama kit. That green box fan in the left corner, though, is still around at my dad's house.
I went down to New Jersey to see this lineup with my friend Sol. But before I cover the show, let's talk about all the great people you meet.
Sol was hanging with someone he met on the train over, a guy around our age named Sam. He's a huge music fan and had also seen ZZ Top and Cannibal Corpse in the last month. Dude loves music!
The winner of best T-Shirt went to this beaut:
On the way in I complimented a young kid on his Propagandhi shirt. It was bootleg he said. But he had color matched Nickelodeon "Doug" socks. So there.
Back to the music: the lineup for the night: Mourning <something>, FEAR, The Gaslight Anthem and Misfits.
Lee Ving from FEAR still has it, and he's only like 73 years old. 1234! 1234! They also had their original drummer Spit Stix, who was tasty as ever. Seriously, go listen to The Record.
Gaslight Anthem is from NJ (like the Misfits) and must have been super excited to be sandwiched between two massive legends.
Now for the Misfits. Glenn! Jerry! Dave Lombardo! Some other guys on guitar. What else needs to be said?
Glenn's vocals were on point and Dave would throw in some Slayer licks every once in a while. It was a killer set. It'd post more pictures but we were in the nose bleed section and all the photos are blurry.
Here's a video of the crowd singing along to "Eagles"
The only downside to seeing Misfits is that you might wake up with the lyrics from "Bullet" running through you head.
Here's the setlist, stolen from setlist.fm
Death Comes Ripping I Turned Into a Martian Where Eagles Dare Hybrid Moments Vampira London Dungeon Some Kinda Hate Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight? All Hell Breaks Loose Hollywood Babylon Who Killed Marilyn Earth A.D. Green Hell Come Back Violent World Skulls Halloween Teenagers From Mars Children in Heat Bullet Night of the Living Dead Astro Zombies Last Caress
This was a bit of a hardcore reunion/throwback show, and my first time at Roadrunner. Killer soundsystem and transgender bathrooms FTW!
Killing Time - NYHC from late 80s. Great quotes from the lead singer, "I look like a telletubby", "turn down the lights, Im roastin!" He did the last 4 songs from the floor cause no one was dancing. Guitarist got on the floor for the last song too. They brought it! Great NYHC vocal style.
Stick to Your Guns - Amazing energy. Metal but also melodic. There was an old guy in a red shirt down front who got taken out by a stage diving. Made it out in wheel chair to full applause. People were running off the stage into nothing. There was a rad older dude who grabbed the mic on stage for the pro-union song and they had an awesome vocal pile-on for another song.
The Suicide File - This is a local band who was around back in 2001. Somehow missed them. Opening music was "We are Family" by Sister Sledge. More punk rock than metal as compared to STYG.
Had a song called “Fuck Fox News”. Huge crowd energy and the singer talked about being overwhelmed by the reception after such a long time away. Drummer had a killer blue Vista Lite drum kit. They had a set list but also played requests and what ever else comes to mind. Respect for knowing the songs that well! Singer also talked about transgender and inclusivity in the HC scene. "Take care of our smaller brothers and sisters and non binary folks" Memorable songs included Laramie (“There’s a burning cross on the hillside”) and a Blitz cover with Colin of Arabia.
You can see Colin and Dave up front in this live slapshot show from '97
Bane- Great mix of tunes, and a good amount of talking between songs, about HC community, inclusivity, transgender, etc. "Don’t listen to old-ass jaded bitches". Before playing "What Makes Us Strong" Aaron talked about "question the bullshit. think critically. that’s what makes a punk kid. that’s what makes a hardcore kid" He also said that there were folks from Germany, Italy and Australia!! I def saw someone in a white truck with PA plates driving like a maniac at the start of Soldiers Field Rd in West Brighton. Gotta imagine they were heading to the show (which had already started by then).
Sydney Bish opened up with a set of mellow electric guitar, pre-recorded parts and some live looping (1 song had to be "prep'ed in the microwave" first). Cute stage banter too. It's great to see how technology can help a solo artist produce a richer sound than just voice and acoustic guitar. I had an Eric Weirheim like dude behind me who TALKED LOUD through her whole set. Why do people attend concerts only to ignore the art? Do people talk at the ballet, or during an opera? How about at figure skating? Or in front of a painting at the MFA?
The Beths - really tight playing from all musicians. Wonderful multi-part harmonies (everyone in the band sings). The drums sounded amazing all around, especially the toms which had a deeper than expected tone. Clap for the lead guitar player before, after or during each guitar solo. A large inflatable fish and some really witty stage banter and fun crowd interactions put The Beths over the top. No wonder both nights are sold out. Shout out to Michael the bus driver.
