Photo by Bill Shouldis

After re-uniting for a new album and American/European tour, Rival Schools is back and better than ever. The band played to a packed crowd at Philadelphia’s Khyber on November 3rd, with the set mostly consisting of songs off the band’s lone full-length United By Fate. They opened up with the United’s opening track “Travel by Telephone,” and went into a forty-five minute set of banger after banger. They also played a slowed down version of “Holding Sand,” which might have been better than the studio version.

Despite the audience frequently yelling out Quicksand titles, Walter Schreifels kept his cool and covered “How Soon is Now” by The Smiths. The band played a handful of songs off the upcoming album, most notably one called “You Should of Hung Out.” Some of the new songs played homage to the grungy sound of Nirvana but the rest of them sounded like a typical Rival Schools songs.

One of the highlights of the set was the encore, when the band played a medley of hardcore classics, including “Clobberin Time” by Sick of it All, “We Gotta Know” by the Cro-Mags, and “Distance” by Moondog.

If this show was any indication of the band’s future, I am sure it is going to be positive. This was the best show I’ve been to all year; so good I had to go to Baltimore two days later to see them again. They weren’t as good as in Philadelphia, but hey, nothing is as good as home.

Tags: Rival Schools, show review //