Agnostic Front / Far From Finished / Refuse Resist / Lenny Lashley’s Gang Of One / Disaster Strikes / Reason To Fight
Club Lido, Revere MA 10/11
This afternoon we’re at Club Lido which I guess normally has a disco setting, I don’t know. I just know we’re in for a Sunday afternoon of hardcore punk and that’s okay with me.
Reason To Fight is up first (band profile:here) and they end up being my second favorite band of the day (Agnostic Front is disqualified as they’re famous and from New York). I’m thinking this is a good sign if a band this good is leading off. I look at them as more punk with a hardcore influence than pure hardcore. They have a lot of “gang group” singing like Black Flag and perfect stops and starts in the music. They give me reason to think of them as a band to watch.
Disaster Strikes is next (band profile:here) and they’re quite excellent as well. More slick than Reason To Fight and more hardcore sounding. Very intense, very fast, very in your face, very very, hardcore music. Also, very musically adept probably as much as some metal players, I think, and very worthy of your notice.
Around this time we finally get to meet Ian of Brass N Ammo show promotions and he’s very nice. And then we meet some folks from Punks For Princess who are trying to raise money for a good cause (trying to help out a little deaf girl, Trinity, who’s at the show). I buy a t-shirt and Bang buys a Refuse Resist cd at their table. This charity helps out young kids so offer them a table at your next show or buy their cool merch.
During all this, Lenny Lashley, (band profile:here) formerly of Darkbuster, is doing a couple of acoustic numbers in between bands. And though what he does I think is great, today’s show is probably not the best setting for him (a show I’ll review soon, was).
About this time they seem to be running out of cheap beer. Guess they didn’t realize how much punk rockers drink. They hunt up some Tecate cans for 3 dollars a pop which is all right by me.
So up next is Refuse Resist (band profile:here) who Andy’s seen and raved about but it’s a first for me. I guess they hadn’t played awhile because of back surgery for the drummer and they don’t disappoint a bit. They put on my favorite set of the day and the crowd seems to love them, too. Visually, they’re an interesting mix of people but musically they combine a perfect combination of casualness and kicking ass and a perfect combo of hardcore and punk. Their song “Sunday Matinee” is appropriate for today and they have the crowd eating out of their hands.
Next is Far From Finished (band profile:here) and the last time we saw these guys was at the Abbey Lounge and that was, obviously, a few years back. We were warned they had lots of new members and were different now. I thought they put on a good punk/pop show but I thought they didn’t fit in with the bands playing that day and their style didn’t fit in with what I look for in punk music. But for what they do they do it well.
Last is Agnostic Front which, as everyone knows, is a legendary New York hardcore band. Say what you will about the Yankees but I’ve always found New Yorkers friendly, helpful, down to earth folks who’ve also made some of my favorite music (early New York punk scene). So these guys ain’t young but they put on an energetic show. At one point they do a Ramones cover and screw up the arrangement a little. After the song they joke, “We’re the only band that would screw up a Ramones song.” But they were more than good and they put on a great show.
So, all ‘n all, it was hard not to enjoy this show, because at its core, it had energy, soul and integrity, … and Tecate.
Cheers.
(Jimmy Thrash)
