All Ages Highlights I: Hot Water Music (May/2011)

Jason Black (left) and Chris Wollard (right) jamming. George Rebelo on drums
as he was going back and forth between Hot Water Music and Against Me!

Felipe M

I have not done a Concert Review in ages as other projects have taken up a lot of my time.  Thought now would be a good time to play some catchup and quickly highlight the last shows I've had the good fortune of attending. 

May 22, 2011: Hot Water Music @ Turner Hall Ballroom--Milwaukee, WI.

As you may or may not know, Hot Water Music is one of the more influential bands in the punk/hardcore community.  Their work speaks for itself with punk rock staples such as "Rooftops," "The End of the Line," and "Paper Thin."  Up to this point, Hot Water Music had not released an album since 2004's The New What Next as they went on hiatus back in 2005. The show last year was part of a short reunion tour in the spring, which included a stop at Bonnaroo (2011).

That is indeed Chuck Ragan.  Stupid
Blackberry phone.

Since the band's hiatus, Chuck Ragan has been super busy with his solo career, where he plays folk music, fused with bluegrass elements and a punk runk ethos.

Chuck Ragan (left) playing guitar.
Jason Black (right) plays guitar.

Meanwhile, drummer George Rebelo filled in for Against Me! when ex-drummer Warren Oakes decided to open up a Mexican restaurant in Gainesville, FL. Bassist Jason Black was playing in the band Senses Fail.

Not to be outdone, Chris Wollard, the other main vocalist in Hot Water Music, has also had a respectable solo career and even went on to form another band with the other band members of HWM called The Draft.

The real treat: getting Chuck Ragan and Revival Tour
violinist Jon Gaunt's autograph before HWM's set.

Highlights: Buying a t-shirt from Chuck Ragan and getting his autograph along with Jon Gaunt.  Ragan proved to be a very nice guy and had a short conversation with him. The look on Gaunt's face when Ragan explained to him that I wanted his autograph was one of bewilderment.  Don't know if he was shocked that someone asked for his autograph or if he wasn't in the mood to give them out, but either way, he signed my ticket stub.... The band playing a majority of their songs from landmark album No Division.... Since listening to it live, I've grown to like the song "Not for Anyone."

Lowlights: Having to drive to Milwaukee on a stormy, rainy day... having to deal with yet another annoying Milwaukee crowd... losing my Hot Water Music t-shirt... not getting Joe Ginsberg's autograph to complete the set. He too was in attendance at this show, but just didn't find the right time to ask for his signature...having to take pictures with my crappy Blackberry phone.  Sorry about the pics being of poor quality.



Click here to read about Chuck Ragan's headline show during Cinco de Mayo 2011 in Chicago.

2011 BIRTHDAY FORTNIGHT: PART IV: Chuck Ragan

(From left to right)
Joe Ginsberg, Chuck Ragan, and Jon Gaunt performing live at the
Mayne Stage on the north side of Chicago.

Felipe M

Former Hot Water Music member, Chuck Ragan is one of the more revered figures in punk rock and it's not surprising that even though he's remade himself into a folk/bluegrass/country/acoustic singer, fans of the band and the punk community still come out to support his shows.  Even though the music might not be punk music in the traditional sense, there's still a punk rock attitude and ethos that dominates every one of his shows.  

MAY 5, 2011: MAYNE STAGE, CHICAGO, IL--Cinco de Mayo in Chicago is an unofficial holiday and it might just be as big as St. Patrick's day.  Just like everybody is a bit Irish on March 17th, everybody is a Mexican on May 5th.  So what does Pathological Hate do celebrate Felipe's Mexican roots?  How about going to a show on the north side of Chicago?  That's what I did as I dragged a couple of co-workers to come with me to see the great Chuck Ragan. 

The last time I saw Chuck Ragan perform was a couple of years ago at Reggie's Rock Club as part of his Revival Tour.  To summarize this wonderful touring act, it's basically the Warped Tour of acoustic/folk music.  That night, Chuck Ragan performed a solo set in the middle of the show (there is no headliner on this tour), as Jim Ward was the one who received the honor of ending that show (although the show continued impromptu style at the bar adjacent to Reggie's).  Past members of the Revival Tour include Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem), Dan Andriano (Alkaline Trio), Frank Turner, Austin Lucas, Audra Mae, and Tim Barry (Avail), just to name a few acts.

Chuck Ragan doing guest vocals with Sharks--
"but for now I'm finding myself/
Up here standing on a rooftop SCREAMING!"

On this night, Chuck Ragan and U.K.'s Sharks took advantage of a day off on their tour in support of Social Distortion to perform at the Mayne Stage in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the north side of Chicago (there's a "good" side of Rogers Park and a "bad" side.  Thankfully, this venue was located on the good side).

Sharks looks like the male version of The Runaways if they were to clash with, well, The Clash.  They're a very young band, but their melodic, street punk sound actually makes them look and sound older than they really are and you can't help, but continue to root for their success.  The obvious highlight of the show was when Sharks were finishing up their set when Chuck Ragan decided to show up and make a cameo appearance and sing-a-long with one of the band's songs.  The coolest part was when during the middle of Sharks' song, they mashed it up by adding the first verse to seminal, underground punk rock anthem of the last decade "Rooftops."  If you don't know the song "Rooftops" do yourself a favor.  Might just be Hot Water Music's defining song.

Chuck Ragan then went on stage along with stand up bassist Joe Ginsberg and cult legend, fiddler Jon Gaunt and were simply amazing.  The crowd was pretty tame as I was hoping for an Against Me!, acoustic set crowd, but crowd was pretty civil and continuously moving which was pretty ideal for this kind of music.  Most importantly, the crowd was very supportive of Ragan, despite being a small crowd, they were very boisterous as requests flew from the audience like ballistics shooting at a besieged city and Ragan was too happy to oblige them (i.e. playing "Rye Whiskey," "Ole Diesel," and "Do What You Do" upon request).  Meanwhile, Ragan played what seemed to be his entire solo collection.  "Do You Pray," "Valentine," "The Boat," "For Broken Ears," "Rotterdam," Let it Rain," and "California Burritos" all made it on the setlist that night and each song was sang with a passion and desperation that only Chuck Ragan can deliver--like he's constantly screaming from the "Rooftops" for the whole world to hear and listen to the message he's trying to portray.  It is a thing of beauty when a musician wears his heart on his sleeve and truly believes in the art that he has created on his own and sharing it with an all-too-willing audience who constantly begged for more.

Also on the night, Ragan played new music from upcoming album Covering Ground.  My best estimation is that he played three songs from the album and they all sounded epically amazing and I left that night thinking that I just heard his best composition to date.

The real gem of the night however was exploring a new venue as the Mayne Stage is a beautiful, small, intimate establishment for live music with a great view of the stage, no matter where you're standing.  It's unbelievably clean and fancy on the inside, while the neighborhood outside has all the amenities and aesthetics of an ideal and imagined urban setting.  

This show is definitely a front-runner for Show of the Year--2011 (and maybe top 3 favorite show of all time) and I am constantly looking for the next time Chuck Ragan stops in town once again.  

To read the 2010 Show of the Year wrap-up, click here.

To read more articles on the band Against Me!, click here.

Is Image Everything? Felipe's Music Manifesto

Felipe M.




I just finished reading David Konow's Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal.  Admittedly a bit dated, it was published in 2002 right as Metallica were about ready to hit rock bottom in their careers.  Nevertheless, it was a very interesting read as every chapter reads more like mini-biographies of not only famous heavy metal acts, but hard rock acts as well such as Led Zeppelin and Kiss--think That Metal Show in book form.  

When reading non-fiction works about the genre, I can't help but to get very excited when the works starts memorializing the "Thrash Metal" movement--usually sandwiched between chapters that speak of bands that wear face paint and make up (i.e. Alice Cooper and the aforementioned Kiss), to bands that insist on wearing as much leather as possible on and off stage (i.e. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, etc.), before them and bands that cared more about their hair than their own music (or their own well-being, such as Motley Crue, Poison, etc.) after them.  Clearly, I have not hidden the fact that my musical tastes are rooted in punk rock and all of its genres and sub-genres so I can appreciate the existence of bands that developed their imagery based on the ideal to do away with glamour, theatrics, and visible imagery in metal music.  In its place were bands that wore black t-shirts (more often with other bands' logos), black jeans, and black shoes/boots with Anthrax even paving the way to wear shorts on stage.  Also missing from this movement was well-groomed, overly cared for, and chemically enhanced hair as grizzled beards and frizzled and scuzzy hair took over.

I will not be here telling whoever is reading this that they should only listen to this band and not the other band.  You can make that decision for yourself.  Instead, I will share with you the music code that I follow when listening to new bands and I like to think that it is solely based on music and not any other crappy image or gimmick the artist is trying to sell to me.  So without further ado...

FELIPE'S SIMPLE RULES ON PUNK AND METAL

• Rule #1: If you have to wear a mask, excessive make up, or face paint, I don't want anything to do with you or your band.  Kiss, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson--you might garner lot of fans and sell many records, but I want nothing to do with any of you!  Something about covering your face makes it seem to me that you're trying too hard on displaying an image or working too hard on theatrics to worry about your music.  Also makes me wonder what the hell it is you are hiding (not in a cool, mysterious way either).  You can tell me all the reasons why Manson is one of the most artistic people in the world and how Slipknot are uber-talented; I will continue to avoid them like the plague.  

• Rule #2: Let me preface by saying that I'm a guy who refuses to shave on a daily basis and I only wash my clothes if their longstanding odor isn't too offensive to me.  I also don't care if my haircut is not "punk enough" or if I'm wearing enough black clothes from Hot Topic so the whole world knows I'm expressing myself by letting people know I listen to Punk Rock and Metal music.  Nor do I worry that my lack of tats and piercings make me any less punk or metal.  If I find that a band seems to go out of their way to work a bit too hard on their image, then i-Tuned them off.  Bands like Anti-Flag and AFI come to mind, especially when they signed their first major label deals.  Travis Barker is another guy who went from being a punk rock drummer to being a drummer who has a punk image to go with his "punk attitude."  So to summarize, even if your band is not wearing makeup or funny-looking masks, any attempt to "dress up" is also grounds for dismissal.

When I go to a concert, I don't want to have to wait for a band to come on stage because they don't look "punk or metal enough" to get on stage yet.  Or maybe their "guyliner" isn't quite dark and guy enough yet, but a few coats promises to do the trick.  Or if their Liberty Spikes looks too punk, but not faux enough.  Nope, that just won't do!  Don't get me wrong, I do tolerate and even enjoy music by Anti-Flag, AFI, Green Day, and Blink-182.  But when I see these bands work so hard for their "look" they just simply come off as clowns.   

Yes, the quality of music is always first, but there are plenty of bands out there who don't go out of their way to create that "punk" or "metal" image.  Basically bands who "look like me" always get preferential treatment on my music rotation.  I'm talking about bands like Bad Religion, A Wilhelm Scream, Darkest Hour, The Lawrence Arms, etc.  When I see Hatebreed on stage and you have Jamey Jasta wearing a baseball hat, another band's t-shirt, shorts, and regular boots, I can appreciate that--the dude has nothing to hide and doesn't need much to get on stage, but a mic and his voice.  When i see Darkest Hour lead singer John Henry refuse to take his glasses off for a band photo, I say to myself, "Hey, I wear glasses and this guy looks like a total nerd like I do and we both like our music loud, aggressive, but with substance."  Best of all, we don't go out of our way to look like some sort of circus freak show.  When I see Bad Religion's lead singer, Greg Graffin's clothes and I can't recognize the brand names that he's wearing, I can relate because I sometimes have a hard time figuring out what brand of clothing I'm wearing (that's why I have a girlfriend so I don't have to worry about trivial stuff like that).

Probably the best personification of my decree to decide which bands will be given my valuable attention is the band Against Me!  These guys simply go on stage wearing all black--no corporate sponsored t-shirts, not even band t-shirts.  It's the coolest thing ever to see a band just go on stage and it's just four guys against the world as they put it all on black.  Their "image" is the epitome of what punk rock should be and it's more in spirit of what the genre is all about than any other fashionably conscious, popular faux punk rawk band out there.  

I can't help but think that both the punk and metal scenes are not and should not be about creating an image to appease a mainstream audience who probably does not care about the music as much as they care about the image that is being sold to them.  It's like the band Against Me! sing in their song "Reinventing Axl Rose":

We want a band

That plays loud and hard every night

A simple way to judge a band.  Very hard to quantify such a quality in today's world where attention spans keep getting shorter and shorter and style constantly trumps substance.  Worse, originality in music is pushed to the side for the chance of success by transforming into one of many copy-cat molds.  Because of this brave new world we live in, a lot of these bands have to find themselves a niche in the scene just to get our attention and avoid being accused of being a copy-cat band.  Hell, Kiss have been triumphant since the 1970s with the simple maxim that having a gimmick was better than being good, but unknown musicians who were dirt poor.

I also understand that many of these bands want to make a living out of their passion and not live dirt poor for the rest of their lives.  But for every band that has a gimmick to survive the music business, there has to be a lot more bands that are surviving who--you know?--work really hard at honing their skills in order to make great, memorable music and are making a comfortable living doing so.  At any rate, I'll continue to root for bands who classify with the latter and hoping for nothing but the worst for the bands that can be classified in the former.  

2010 SHOW OF THE YEAR

Felipe M.

In what seemed to be taking forever, we finally close out the 2010 Pathological Hate Concert Calendar by counting down towards the much anticipated "SHOW OF THE YEAR." My original goal was to attend at least one show per month. Needless to say, that goal was not directly met, however, I was able to attend THIRTEEN concerts last year averaging to about ONE show per MONTH. I do not know if I would be able to do it again in 2011, especially with so many shows to attend, but little money or time to attend them all, 2011 is off to a rocky start, but let's go back one more time to last year as I rank my least favorite shows and quickly work my way to my favorite show of last year.

13. January 9--Battery (Metallica tribute band) and Skulls (Misfits tribute band) @ Reggie's Rock Club: Devon, Ricardo, and my old college buddy, Mike saw two mediocre local bands and a Misfits cover band with a chick for a bassist. The Misfits cover band played old favorites, but were either super-nervous or inexperienced as there were more instrument malfunctions than at a second-hand music store. What they lacked in musicianship they made up in soul as it was clear that the band enjoyed playing these punk rock staples. On the other hand, Battery played Metallica songs, old and new, note for note, chord for chord, and word for word. Unfortunately, they did all this a little too well as the songs became too boring to listen to and the band, at times, looked liked robots on stage.


12. March 26--Unearth @ House of Blues: I came back from San Diego on this same day to catch this band perform live for the first time ever. I was exhausted from the flight and the long train ride to downtown Chicago so maybe this show was not the best thing for me, theretofore. I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of their setlist contained songs from my favorite album The Oncoming Storm. However, the crowd was terrible and seeing the band "beg" the audience to raise the energy level was just plain sad.


11. July 3--Against Me! @ JBTV Studios: A band that I almost lost all interest in coming into the year performed a short, but solid set in front of a live, but small studio audience for the taping of an episode of JBTV. Unfortunately, the crowd was as stiff as statues as even old favorites such as "Pints of Guiness Makes You Stronger" did nothing to get the crowd going. The new songs from the album White Crosses were surprisingly good enough for me to buy the album that same week. It was later reported that the band was no longer signed to their major label, a great sign for all Against Me! fans everywhere.


10. July 10--Silverstein, Emery, and We Came as Romans @ The Metro: We Came as Romans sounded like every band that has broke out on the national scene in the last 3 years and their set did nothing to leave an impression on me except to refer to them as The Devil Wears Prada-lite. Emery, without question, was the best band of the night. Even though most of their setlist consisted of songs from their latest album, ...In Shallow Seas We Sail, their set was more varied and extremely intense and full of energy and the crowd was solid considering that Emery is a band that is attempting to garner a diverse following. Silverstein, the headlining band, did not impress much and their sets are starting to become very predictable. The new songs, for the most part were dull live and Shane Told's voice sounded horrible, especially the clean vocals, but in his defense, all the bands' clean vocals sounded awful and the blame has to go to The Metro on that one.


9. March 21--Bad Religion @ House of Blues San Diego: The second night and final night of my Bad Religion trek to San Diego ended relatively subpar as I was still hurting from the previous show (stay tuned). I came in late, probably missed a few songs and decided to take a backseat and not get too involved with the crowd, but overall a solid night nonetheless.


8. September 4--A Wilhelm Scream and Counterpunch @ Reggie's Rock Club: Local band Counterpunch gave a monumental performance as they performed a mixture of their old, pop-punk songs with what seemed to be their newer, more technical and politically charged songs. A Wilhelm Scream completed another consistent show, but seeing this band twice before, I have seen them do better. A lot of old favorites were cut out to make room for the very successful self-titled EP that came out last year, but to me, the wrong songs from the EP were performed. Nevertheless, the band's discography is comparable to a basketball team with a deep bench as any track they play live will sound amazing. Also, the band was able to host a bigger crowd, but again, I've seen better crowds attend their shows.


7. July 2--Streetlight Manifesto @ The Metro: It was blazing at The Metro that night--literally it was hot as hell with so many people in the mosh pit area jamming to the band's music. I decided to stand on the sidelines for this one and I could still feel the heat. The setlist was solid and full of the ska-punk band's classics. The ranking is a little low for a show of this caliber, considering that it passes every parameter needed to make a great show, but I think what's holding this show back is the fact that I wasn't too involved with the crowd and I didn't get a chance to see any other bands. Then again, I'm not a big fan of ska music so maybe it was for the best that I didn't see any other bands that night. Unless of course it's Streetlight Manifesto.
6. January 16--88 Fingers Louis, The Boll Weevils, and Agent Orange @ Reggie's: The reason this show had a higher ranking was due to the quantity of bands that played that night. Not mentioned on the list was the first band Ricardo and I saw, She Likes Todd who was pretty decent. But ultimately, this show kicked off our concert calendar back into course with the return of 88 Fingers Louie AND Agent Orange, both bands could be considered as significant to the genre. Agent Orange was simply the best band of the night showing that they still had enough to blow the roof out of venues. Boll Weevils were simply, extremely aggressive and fun to watch. And seeing 88 Fingers Louie back together again was a treat as they are a very important band for the Chicago punk rock scene. This show felt like a history museum and that's not being disrespectful, rather it's a metaphor on how honored I was to be able to attend.

5. June 12--Thrice @ House of Blues: 4th time seeing this band live and they did not disappoint. Thrice mostly played songs from their awesome release Beggars and from their most recent releases, such as The Alchemy Index and Vheissu. But the real highlight of the night came when they played a song I thought I would never see them play live in my lifetime, "To Awake and Avenge the Dead." Without a doubt, one of the most single, thrilling concert moments in my life.

4. March 20--Bad Religion @ House of Blues, San Diego: The thing that stood out the most at this show was just how crazy the crowd was--and how big and overweight the people of San Diego are. I was getting tossed around like a rag doll at this show and it wasn't bad enough that I had one bad left knee, but this one kid kept hitting my right knee with his--in the same song! I went to the hotel beaten, bruised, but satisfied as the band went deep into their 30 years worth of music catalog and put on a fantastic show.
3. October 8--Bad Religion, The Lawrence Arms, Circle Jerks, and Bouncing Souls @ The Congress Theatre: The Chicago crowd was a lot tamer than the one in San Diego, but not by that much as Bad Religion shined brightest with a much larger crowd for RiotFest 2010. Also, the bands that played beforehand could have gone on a tour of their own and would have sold out a lot smaller venues with hometown heroes Lawrence Arms, punk rock legends Circle Jerks, and one of the few tolerable groups of people to ever come out of New Jersey, The Bouncing Souls as even a toe injury to their lead singer couldn't stop them from sounding amazing.

The top 2 shows of last year happened very early in 2010 and a lot of mulling, discussions, and arguments between Devon, Ricardo, and I have led me with more questions than answers. On the one hand, Between the Buried Me, the crowd was absolutely superb as they fed the band energy and encouragement throughout their very long set. However, The Dillinger Escape Plan brought the show to the audience as band members walked on top of the audience, guitarists were playing on top of the bar, and the bassist hung from the venue's rafters only to ultimately fall face down into his own near death. For the majority of the year, Between the Buried and Me had the edge at #1, but after 12 months the show that stood out and that we still talk about is The Dillinger Escape Plan.
2. January 24--Between the Buried and Me @ House of Blues: It is amazing how this band can play their 10+ minute songs to perfection live. The wave of sound that comes out of this band must be experienced for any music lover in general. Most of the band's setlist was from the uber-phenomenal album The Great Misdirect climaxing with the epic "Disease, Injury, Madness." If that wasn't enough, the band also performed fan favorites "Alaska" and "Ants of the Sky." The show must have lasted about an hour and a half, a lot of time given to an indie band of this caliber to do what they do best and that's rock the house out.
1. April 2--The Dillinger Escape Plan and Darkest Hour @ Reggie's Rock Club: I must preface this by saying that for the entire show, my friends and I were standing all the way back by the bar as we were content to watch the show from a distance. Plus it was packed at Reggie's. Already a very small venue, I have never seen this place this full to the brim before. Darkest Hour was great playing a great mix of old and new songs alike and I even got to talk to vocalist John Henry after the show. However, the band that stole the show, hell even the year went to The Dillinger Escape Plan as they took the show to the crowd--not begging the audience to get into the music, but basically just punching us in the throat unexpectedly and holding our attention until they were done with us. Never have I seen a band make the audience move from the front row all the way to the back where we were by the bar--hell, I was dancing to their songs and I know I wasn't the only one. Never could I imagine dancing along to complex, jazz-influenced, odd time signatures before, but it happened! If that wasn't enough, the light show that complemented the band was astonishing. I really don't care much for the lighting of these shows, but the work done that night was so appropriate and simply unforgettable.
One of the shows that we are going to is Deftones at the Riv in Chicago and opening up for them is The Dillinger Escape Plan and admitedly, I'm more excited about seeing The Dillinger Escape Plan at this show than the headlining Deftones. And Deftones put on amazing shows as well so that already will be a front runner for the 2011 Show of the Year.
Venue of the Year, without a doubt, was Reggie's Rock Club on State St. near the "Happiest Place on Earth," Chinatown. The bar next door has the same aesthetics as the concert hall, but with a million TVs, it is a sports fans' paradise. Drinks are relatively cheap considering the location of the place and the venue is very intimate and with a sloping mosh pit, it is damn near impossible to not get a good view of the stage.
I definitely look forward to more shows in 2011 and have already seen Thursday perform their album Full Collapse in its entirety and will get my second dose of Streetlight Manifesto after Valentine's Day. Feel free to share your favorite concert going experience of last year.

Summer Live Part III: Against Me! @ JBTV

Felipe M

The following is part of a series to wrap up the 2nd half of my 2010 concert calendar. It is proving to be a long winded afair, but DAMMIT, I will finish it up. By the time you read through this story, we would be half way done with this journey. Coming up next: AGAINST ME! on JBTV.

July 3rd, Against Me! Live @ JBTV Studio:



Well, well, well Against Me!, we meet again! I've seen this band 5 times in my lifetime, more than any other band (I have seen both Thrice and Bad Religion 4x's). The 5th time left such a bad impression with me that I decided that I would never follow this band again. Seriously! I was going to be done with them. Their major label debut known as New Wave was pretty solid, but for Against Me! standards, it would be pretty subpar. I can sit here and talk about how mediocre New Wave is, but that would be stating the obvious. The fact is, I wasn't going to even give the new, much anticipated album White Crosses a chance either as I decided to completely turn my back on this band--well, not too complete... maybe 3/4 of my back was turned....

... Made it a lot easier to face forward when Ricardo's brother, Gabe informed me that he had an extra pass to see Against Me! perform an acoustic set at the JBTV studios, but wasn't sure who he should take.....

For those who don't know what JBTV is, it is a local TV show here in Chicago starring a hippie-looking, Gandalf the gray wizard look-a-like, Jerry Bryant. The show is awesome as it showcases local and established music acts and other bands in the world of underground, indie, punk, alternative, or simply put non-mainstream music world. The show also airs live performances from their sweet-looking soundstage where a few lucky people can see a band live perform in the most intimate of settings--and lots and lots of cameras. And it gets juicier music fans, especially if you do not live in the Chicagoland area, as not only are the previous aired episodes of JBTV availabe FREE OF CHARGE on i-Tunes, but their website is full of videos of performances, interviews, episodes and more! It's the coolest thing since All Ages Radio aired on Friday nights with Kevin and Gordon!



The most beautiful phrase in the English language is as follows:

Against Me! to perform a live acoustic set

If at any point in your lives you come across these words, your first reaction is to pounce at the opportunity like a Love Smith Bears defense pounces on a football after a forced turnover (NORTH DIVISION CHAMPS!). There is nothing like an Against Me! acoustic set. Heck the band started off as an acoustic band and to this day, there are fans out there that are still mad at the band for switching to electronic guitars for Reinventing Axl Rose. So after trying to convince my friend Gabe that I was the right person to go with, I won out because it turns out Gabe is a loser and has no friends whatsoever!

Good weekend so far: Streetlight Manifesto the night before, Against Me! the following afternoon.

Based on the episode that was aired on November 10, 2010 and based on my fuzzy memory, the set went as follows:

1. High Pressure Low
2. I Was a Teenage Anarchist
3. Pints of Guiness Makes You Strong
4. Spanish Moss
5. White Crosses
6. Sink Florida Sink

Initially, before the band even got on stage, the coolest part of it all was Brendan Kelly from the Lawrence Arms was on stage introducing the band. How cool is that? Turns out, he actually is one of the hosts on JBTV. Tre cool!

If you have never heard any Against Me! songs before in your life, they're easy to get into as sing-alongs are a plentiful. For example, the first time I heard the song "Thrash Unreal" was in April of 2007 before I even knew it would come out in the very mainstream album New Wave, as I made the misguided notion that the song was a track released pre-Axl Rose days. Turned out it was a new song, and even then fans at the show were able to sing along to it because that's just the way the songs are structured. Hell, I used to hate the song "Walking is Still Honest" until i heard it live at my first Against Me! show in DeKalb, IL (the very same one where I first heard "Thrash" and found out that I can sing along to the "whoa, whoa, whoa" parts (Observe). First time I heard "High Pressure Low," I found myself in the same situation as I was, at the very least, able to sing along to the "whoa" part of the chorus. You can't help but to sing-a-long with the band.

"Teenage Anarchist" came up next and even though I never considered myself an anarchist when I was a teenager (or even through my college years), I easily found myself relating to this song. I do remember when I was young and was ready to set the world on fire, but the revolution never came because it was indeed a fucking lie!!!!!!! I almost cried listening to this song. That's the other thing about Against Me!, besides their catchiness, they write some really good songs that people like me can actually relate to. (That's why I still look for bands "who play loud and hard every night").

Despite the new songs being great listens theretofore, great disappointment in the set came when one of the band's staple songs "Pints of Guiness Makes You Strong" was next on the list. Before the show started, we were told by Brendan Kelly I believe, that this was a real concert venue and just because there were cameras around, that we should feel free to liberally do what we normally would do at "real" shows. Unfortunately, we as the audience must've either forgotten that rule, we were tired from the night before, maybe we are nervous when there's cameras around, or maybe we were all critically judging this band as only this band can get judged, but I was gravely disappointed when we all pretended that we didn't know the song that the band was performing on stage. I mean, I sang along, but even then, if I were to really sing, you could have probably heard my voice on one of the many live mics. After the song's performance, a stellar job as always by the way, Tom said something that you will not catch on any of the online episodes (and I paraphrase): "Fuck, even when we decide to play an old song, you guys just stand around like zombies. So we're just gonna keep playing the new songs." I'm sure it was meant to be half-serious, half-facetious, but it's insulting to get called out by one of the most influential people in punk rock today. But Gabel was right.

We move on to "Spanish Moss" and following "Guiness" is a tough task, but following "Guiness" AND being called out by Gabel, I still haven't gotten over it and I really don't enjoy "Moss" when I listen to it because of it. Gabel then introduced the next song "White Crosses" as a personal song based on an event that occurred to him in St. Augustin, Florida and had to do with abortion clinics. The final reason why people get into Against Me! is that the band, and most notably Gabel, wear their hearts, their social and political views, on their sleeves. They finish the set with "Sink, Florida, Sink," another fan favorite, to little fanfare as the band finished the set and left the stage faster than you can ask, "is walking still honest, Tom?"

The crowd, was one of the worst crowds at a show, but with the cameras around, I can see how people were more reserved with their actions, but with a band that is action packed like Against Me! why would we do that to ourselves? Maybe we were just in awe of a band that was not on the decline on the heels of releasing their second major label album, rather at the pinnacle of their careers. Regardless, the moral of the story is that I went out and bought White Crosses a few days after the set (along with The Gasligth Anthem's American Slang. YES, both self-titled tracks from both ablums sound extremely identical). So far, I have been pleasantly surprised on how much I have enjoyed Crosses. As cheesy as it will sound, the album has become the soundtrack to my 2010 summer. Unfortunately, this show is nowhere near a contender for SHOW OF THE YEAR. Hope they had a better crowd opening up for the Silversun Pickups that night.