The last few days have been…uncomfortable. I write this laying awkwardly on the floor of my new apartment – too much work to set up the desk. It’s not that I’m too lazy to unpack; it’s just between bagging groceries and staying sane, I haven’t started the get-my-life-on-track process. The trip to the fridge is a perilous journey through a confusing labyrinth of unpacked boxes and a rickety tower of Tecate’ cans are our only decoration. Nothing really seems normal right now, and for the first time in a while, I feel like I don’t know where my home is.

What really freaks me out is punk and hardcore used to fill that void for me. Whenever I would get yelled at by a customer at work, I could always throw on an AMERICAN NIGHTMERE album and feel better. But after seeing violent youth crews take over scenes and watching a bazillion bands rehash the past instead of create something new, I began questioning my love for hardcore. I knew I was really going through something when I heard that BANE was coming through, and I wasn’t jumping out of my skin like I normally did – maybe hardcore was just a phase in my life, and phases have a bad habit of ending.

We arrived at the Pound to the sound of JETS TO BRAZIL playing on the house stereo – pleasant surprise. San Francisco’s SEIZE THE NIGHT was first. The band played AMERICAN NIGHTMERE style speedy hardcore – same ol’ stuff but with interesting song structures and well-placed breakdowns that made them more interesting than your average hardcore band. As I watched a kid circle the pit at a crawl, I realized SEIZE THE NIGHT was experiencing the typical new band syndrome: audience seemed more interested in discussing the Giants win over Texas, and giant pile-on’s were replaced by adorable five person pile-on’s made mostly of friends of the band. Hardcore kids are a tough group to please, and the cool part was SEIZE THE NIGHT didn’t care much; the singer stomped around the stage, doing his best Walter Schreifels impression despite the less-than-enthusiastic crowd response. The last song they played had a killer rock n’ roll vibe to it that immediately sparked the crowd’s interest, and if SEIZE THE NIGHT keeps touring their asses off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the mp3 players of all those skeptics in the next few months.

Sometimes I’m very guilty of judging a band before hearing them. My thought process goes: ‘well I don’t really like the label they’re on, and they’re fans seem all tough and stuff,’ and generalization after generalization. I had many reservations about OUTBREAK, but when the band started rocking, I realized how much the internet world has turned me into a judging Judy, or a gossiping Gertrude – sometimes I wish we could return to the good ol’ days when all you knew about a band was from the CD booklet. OUTBREAK played speedy short-and-sweet hardcore that contained all the elements I love about the genre: it was louder than bombs, rawer than sewage, and about as fun as a sack of assorted Jelly Bellys. The best part about their show was the audience’s vibe – the kids were running in circles, and stage diving, and despite the shenanigans, there was not one fight, a heart warming trend that would continue throughout the night.

THIS IS HELL was up next, and while I enjoyed a few tracks off of their latest, Sundowning, their live show was kind of half-assed. Granted they’ve been driving all day, and playing shows night after night – for whatever reason, I felt like THIS IS HELL was just going through the motions. The crowd didn’t seem to be feeling it either. During “Broken Teeth,” the band unleashed one of their heaviest breakdowns (seriously, this ones a doosie!), and the dance floor was completely empty. The band stumbled upon the energy that was missing with their final song “Permanence.” The crowd chanted, “One more song” at a volume level that the band couldn’t ignore, which prompted THIS IS HELL to come back and gave a old school hardcore makeover to “Fight for Your Right” by the BEASTIE BOYS. The whole place went off, and watching kids with “I’m Straight Edge” written on the back of their shirt sing “Your pops caught you smoking and he said, ‘No way’” was pretty hysterical. It was nice to see a hardcore band that didn’t take themselves too seriously.

The older I get, the harder it is for hardcore bands to impress me. I don‚Äôt think there is anything inherently wrong with the genre, but I think most bands I hear are happy rehashing what GORILLA BISCUITS did, which is great ‚Äì whatever makes them happy, I just don‚Äôt want to listen to it over and over again. What made hardcore exciting to me initially was how different it was. I‚Äôd never heard a band that would ditch vocal melody completely and scream their heads off; I‚Äôd never heard a band whose music made me want to knock my book case over (in the best way possible). But after a while, gang vocals became convention, and breakdowns predictable ‚Äì turns out rehashed aggression isn‚Äôt really aggressive at all. MODERN LIFE IS WAR kicked the crap out of my doubts about hardcore’s ability to excite me.

Later on in the night during BANE’S set, singer Aaron Bedard gave one of his trademark speeches, this time about the band MODERN LIFE IS WAR: “when MODERN LIFE IS WAR is gone, we’ll look back and wish that they were still around.” The only word I can think of in describing MODERN LIFE IS WAR’S performance is classic. When singer Jeffrey Eaton belted out the line “What the fuck are you going to do kid?” with a fury rarely seen on stage, I knew I was witnessing something special Рthe band was at an entirely different level. They played through most of Witness including “Martin Atchet,” John and Jimmy,” and “Young Man Blues.” The first time I saw the band, singer Jeffrey Eaton seemed quiet and rigid, as if he hadn’t grown into his position as a front man. But this time around he seemed to be much more comfortable in his situation. When one kid yelled “Play Dead Ramones,” Jeffrey Eaton yelled back “You be patient,” with a comical tone that reminded me of a parent scolding a child who stole a cookie from the cookie jar. The band also played a new song that literally gave me chills – the song went further down the path Witness paved, mixing even slower tempo’s with giant crescendo’s, atmospheric guitars, and Jeffrey’s enormous yell. When the band finished up, I couldn’t believe I’d seen such a great show, and BANE hadn’t even come on yet. I haven’t been this excited about a hardcore band since I first heard BANE.

Regardless of what I write down, this review is going to be a ripple from the initial splash ‚Äì articulating what I felt during BANE‚ÄôS performance is impossible, but as Jeffrey Eaton says in the final track on MODERN LIFE IS WAR’S Witness, ‚ÄúHere it is confused and flawed.‚Äù BANE hit me at a time when I needed something to believe in, and as silly as it might seem to some, their music provided that. BANE opened with ‚ÄúSpeechless,‚Äù and from that moment, I was transported to another world. It was like all those things that I wanted to believe about hardcore came true for just one show. Everyone in the crowd was singing every line, and when one person fell to the ground, three more went down and picked ‚Äòem up. Different races, genders, and ages holding each other up made the clich√© about music bringing people together a reality There was no fighting, no head walking, no violence whatsoever ‚Äì just a rowdy good time had by a bunch of folks who wanted to forget the outside world for an hour. From what I remember (the whole thing is kind of a blur) a few of the tunes BANE played were ‚ÄúSnakes Among Us,‚Äù ‚ÄúSome Come Running‚Äù ‚ÄúPot Commited,‚Äù ‚ÄúCan We Start Again,‚Äù ‚ÄúAnte Up,‚Äù and ‚ÄúWhat Makes Us Strong”". The band finished with ‚ÄúSwan Song,‚Äù and throughout the entire song, all I could think was how lucky I was to have witnessed this band. Aaron Bedard threw the microphone on the ground, and walked off stage, and I knew they were done; they didn‚Äôt need an encore. This may sound like garbled rambling from a total fan boy ‚Äì that‚Äôs fine, guilty as charged. That show was the most exciting thing I have seen in years, and totally reminded me why I fell into punk and hardcore so many years ago, as well as reminding me that home isn‚Äôt always a building with a bed and a microwave oven.