Stiff Little Fingers @ The Paradise, May 1 2024

 The best Irish rock n roll band takes a final lap.

Opening up was a solo set from Ricky Warwick, also from Northern Ireland, as told during on stage banter, inspired to get a guitar when he first saw SLF back in the early 70s.  

Ricky had a great sound, a unique guitar and did a fantastic cover of Ace of Spades, which is hard to do solo.

I also bumped into an old scene friend Stu who runs the Joe Kelley memorial scholarship and concert every year.  He had a great story to tell about the Poison Idea hoodie he rocks at most shows. 

SLF come out of the gate with Suspect Device!  I could have left after that first song it was so good.  

"Hate has no home" is the name of the tour and comes from a movement in Chicago (where Jack has called home for 20 years).  Reminds me of an interview with Frankie Stubbs riffing on how can you be a punk rocker and vote Torey (aka conservative).  Answer: you can't!  Ain't no thing as Christian metal either. 

Also in the house was Jeff from Wizard security.  Missed my chance to get a selfie.  Stu says he's 80!!

Jack also talked about and sang a song about depression and getting help rather than toughing it out.  Great stuff. 

My only critique of the man is that he had horrible cable management :D 

SLF also did a fantastic version of "Doesn't make it alright" by The Specials and a tribute song to Joe Strummer.

BTBAM @ The Paradise, Mar 14 2024

This was a special show, with BTBAM playing their album "Colors" in it's entirety.  It was also special because I finally stopped being an idiot moron and ignoring music suggestions from my best bud Dennis.

The opener was local deathcore band The Acacia Strain.

 

(Special guest guitar player: Kerry King)

I loved the contrast of death metal and metalcore/hardcore.  They were tight and the crowd was super in to them.  The singer had some good interstitial banter:  "have fun, give someone a high five, make a friend".

As usual folks had Tree and SBC gear on.  Also saw a few Death shirts.  Shirt of the night award goes to this oldie but goodie, worn by the bouncer:

BTBAM came on next and wow!  What a performance.  Really technical, but also great variation between heavy and quiet, more than a few acapella sing-a-long parts and stage lights to go along.  My favorite song was probably Sun of Nothing, although I can't quite say where it started or ended.  And I think that's the fun part about this band. 

Lots of crowd surfing, and it seemed that all the surfers, regardless of gender, had long hair. 🤘

Year in Review 2023

In 2023 I made it to a total of 8 live shows.  

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). 

Favorite Show: SBC, runner up: The Beths

I also bought tickets to these shows but couldn't make it for one reason or another:

• Tree at Ralphs Diner on Mar 24 (Fordy couldn't make it)
• Covet at Royale on Apr 27 (week night, exhausted)
• Voice of Baceprot at the Middle East on Aug 12 (traveling for work)
• Danzig at MGM on Sep 11 (tried and failed to do a double header with the Battles show)
• MSSV (Mike Watt) at the Middle East on Oct 13 (family trip)
• Christian McNeil at The Fallout Shelter on Nov 3 (sick)
• Amyl and the Sniffers at Roadrunner on Nov 4 (sick)

Overall, it was a great year for shows and I'm looking forward to getting to a few more in 2024.  The big one will be Metallica/Pantera in August.