Our friends The Measure [SA] have announced their touring plans for March. The band will be heading down to Florida and back, playing shows with World/Inferno Friendship Society, Strike Anywhere, The Riverboat Gamblers, Grabass Charlestons, For Science, and many more.
Check out the dates after the jump and be sure to give Walter and Beavie a high five for us out there.
Even though they’ve played many times together, the bill of Strike Anywhere and Paint It Black is one you can never get sick of. Throw in the Riverboat Gamblers and you have got yourself an amazing night! Check out the dates after the jump and stayed tuned for some exciting Paint It Black-related news and an interview in the next few weeks.
Yeah yeah, Elona already posted pictures from this tour. Blah Blah Blah. Well! My pictures are better sucka! Nah, anyways, this show was uh…mixed to say the least. The Riverboat Gamblers were on-point as usual and Mike Weibe did his usual griding with audience member’s heads and threw mic around throughout. They are meant for a more intimate setting but I love seeing them piss off people who have never seen them before.
Rollins Band was so, so, so incredibly boring. I’m sorry but once you get over the intial shock of seeing Rollins in the flesh, there is not much else. It’s just a bunch of meathead noise with Rollins waving his cock at all the apes.I literally had to go to the bar to keep myself awake during the set. I respect the man and his message but come on, Rollins Band is just one of those bands that leaves fans yearning for more. I am sure these sounds like fighting words to their fans but so be it.
X was incredibly sloppy but I dug that. They messed up a few times throughout the night but it showed whose passion for the band was genuine. DJ and John Doe rocked around through the mistakes and actually looked to be enjoying themselves while Exene and the creepiest man alive Billy Zoom looked like they were gonna explode. Interesting to see none the less. X did two encores, which was kinda. X is just one those things that every self-respecting punk-rock fan has to see. However, something bugs me about their performances and its hard to put my finger on it. X will never make another album and most people know that. That’s my one problem with bands like them reuniting. Unlike say Mission Of Burma, it seems like the band is just together for the hell of it. Granted, it’s better to have them around then not but I still wish they had the creative juices they had before.
-Matthew Francis “Some day I’ll figure out my password”
Last night served as an introduction to punk rock for my little sister. See, we have gravitated to two seemingly different subcultures. Mine racuous punk rock and her’s, a quiet infatuation with anime and video games. I went to check out her scene at a terrifyingly geeky convention called Otakon, where creepy men and awkward kids walked around dressed up like cartoon characters and creamed over Japanese cartoons. I couldn’t really get the appeal of the whole thing but I was convinced that last night my sister wouldn’t deny the type of raw energy and excitement these three bands are able to conjure up.
Equipped with ear plugs and her Nintendo DS Lite, my sister meekly walked into the 9:30 Club naively hoping there would be no Woodstock ‘99 damage happening. I followed. We went through the double doors and she let out a shriek that made all of the security flinch. I told her it would be loud but The Riverboat Gamblers surpassed her expectations, and mine too. 
The crowd was made up of aging hipsters which meant more drinks and less crowd movement. The Riverboat Gamblers played their loud, garage rock and got nothing but blank stares back. The singer, Mike, had to feel the disdain and to counter that he attacked the audience’s comfort zone. Mike jumped over the barricade, walked through the crowd, jumped on top of the merch table, and climbed to the second floor of the club all the while screaming his heart out, and knocking startled hipsters in the face with his microphone cord. My sister jumped behind me, scared the madman with greasy, long hair would get too close.
The vibe of the audience changed dramatically as the time inched closer to when The Rollins Band would hit the stage. It started to get serious. I have never been a Rollins Band fan so I naturally didn’t have high expectations for their set. What an idiot I was. Their set made it the best show of the summer for me. To describe it as intense is an understatement. When Henry Rollins walked on stage it wasn’t a game and he was either going to inspire you or intimidate the hell out of you. Henry demands a high level of fixation and its hard not to give it to him when he is muscular, crouched, with his body wide spread, gyrating with nothing but shorts on, glistening with sweat and spitting and snorting between angry words. I was expecting Henry to be a little wordy at the show given his popular spoken words but he rarely said anything the whole night. In the one time that he did speak, he described a grisly scenario that implied politicians dying of suffocation by linen dinner sheets.
X’s set made for a light hearted follow up to the Rollins Band. I’ve seen X twice and they have never disappointed. Exene playfully danced around with her hands in her pockets singing fan favorite like “Once Over Twice”, “Year One”, and “We’re Desperate”, just to name a few. John Doe plowed away on the bass and crooned alongside Exene, showing more enthusiasm than anyone else in the band.
I was near the left side of the stage which meant that Billy Zoom was going to stare me down the whole night. Zoom looks like a creepy, smiling, wax statue when he plays but that made for great pictures.
An X set can never be long enough for me but sadly it had to end. Bill Zoom snapped pictures of the audience and shook a couple of people’s after their set. I was the first person whom he shook hands with and I have to say that was the longest time I have every shook a hand. I had to stare down at the floor after a while because his gaze was a bit stupefying.
I was eager to know how my sister felt about her first show but when I walked over to her after X’s set, I saw she had that damn video game. Before I could get flustered, she said she really liked the show, especially X, so its only a matter of time she’ll convert and be my new show buddy.
Copyright © 2008 Late Night Wallflower
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