Revelation Records: 25th anniversary showcases: day 1
Revelation Records are celebrating their 25th anniversary big time with a couple of showcases. Jean-Paul & Mazzel Gijs will be reporting every day for the next couple of days. So for everyone who’s missing out on this (I feel you, wish I could be there), here’s their report:
Day 1.
October 11, 2012
Irving Plaza, NYC.
After an early at dinner at Blossoms’ in the Upper West part of town we headed back to our temporary apartment in Brooklyn to have a power nap before the show. Not only the jet lag is kicking in, but also heavy shopping, intense eating and lots of walking during the day.
By the time we got at the venue and picked up our four day passes On The Might Of Princess already played. We missed out on their set.
Gameface was up next. The first band we really wanted to see. They played quite some songs off their best record “Every Last Time”, but they didn’t forget to play a couple of songs of earlier work from “Good” and “Three To Get Ready”. Although the band started playing again just recently for the Revelation Records showcases, it didn’t show in their performance. Jeff Caudill and the other Gamefacers really seemed to enjoy being on stage again. And this showed off. In their 30 minutes set.
Next band on the bill, to our surprise, was Shades Apart. Musically this band is really good, but their college rock influenced punk rock tunes were definitely not for everyone. Not only were we surprised that they ended up on the time table after Gameface, but lots of people walked away during their set consisting of just songs from both their Revelation releases. Most people were anxiously waiting for the next band to go up: Underdog.
By the time Underdog kicked off, Irving Plaza is packed. Opening with the song “From now on” the place is on fire. Being the only hardcore band on the bill tonight they once more define what New York Hardcore stood for back in the days. These four talented musicians created an own sound mixing hardcore with reggae without sounding like the Bad Brains. Their set contained all ingredients of a great show appreciated by both young and old.
Looking back, the wait was long to finally see Texas Is The Reason again on stage for the first time since their 1997 Euro tour. From the moment the intro started you could feel the tension grow from over a thousand enthousiastic people in the room: sing alongs, stage dives and dancing it all was there. They even performed a brand new song. Does that mean the band is back together again and we can expect a new record in the near future? Unfortunately we couldn’t watch the entire set as we were among the lucky few who got invited to the Chain Of Strength after party show. For that we had to travel to a different part in town.
By the time we arrived at the “Acheron” venue somewhere in Williamsburg, the place was packed with definitely more than 200 kids. we watched Clear finishing their set. Too bad we missed out on their set, as they were a bunch of youth crew kids playing early 80s Boston style hardcore. Pretty intense! The good thing is that the wait for Chain Of Strength, since 1992, was almost over. As soon as the intro of “Impact” starts the place literally explodes. Picture a small stage in the corner of a tiny room. Over two hundred kids going ape nuts and stage dives from where ever they could find something to jump off. All songs played within 30 minutes and about to leave us without playing “True Till Death”… But eventually the Chain ended their show with this classic.
On to tomorrow!
– Mazzel Gijs & Jean-Paul
Back to reviews overview
Man. Looks / sounds / reads / whatever awesome 😉
The pictures of that COS show look amazing, but the vid. doesn’t show that ‘hundred kids going ape nuts and stage dives from where ever they could find something to jump off’ vibe. What about that?
Might be because that’s the only unreleased song they’ve played. People don’t know the song.
Makes sense!
Show reviews are mostly also based on personal taste, I thougth that shades apart was the 2nd best band overall of the evening, what a very good singer, even live he has such a great voice, a very good live band, the only minor thing was that the backingvocals where too loud, and i was missing a second guitar.
Did not see of feel that they had less people than when gameface played, because everybody where standing much closer to each other while watching and listening to shades apart.
I liked gameface also very much, they played lots of good songs and even some fav. ones from me, minor thing was that the singer, perhaps could not hear himself that much and had a few false tones in some songs.
Underdog is not really my kind of thing, but i wanted to see them live to see if i could change my own feeling about them, ritchie is such a good singer and can do so many things with his voice, don’t understand that me it comes over as a sort of gimmick with all the different singing styles even in 1 song, the started well, but i kind of think that the band was disappointed by the low vibe of the people and that reflected on the band.
then texas is the reason, finally a louder and a better complete sound(comparing to all the bands that already played, from which i thought the total volume was way to low), only the vocals from texas is the reason where too loud comparing to the overall good sounding volume of the guitars and drums.
What a band and what a songs, the band of the evening for most people, every body was standing really close together and where enjoying themselfs.
But how come that is almost takes a whole song to change the broken mic/chord, in these kind of clubs???
Then the aftershow with chain of strength, that i really wanted to see live from day one that i knew them, it only took me something like 23 years 😉
i talked with chris a short while when we arrived at the rev. fest show and he was so glad and really wanted to play because according to him he is chain’s no. 1 fan, and liked his positive outlook on things , we talked abouth guitars and the early days and he really wants to see Larm live, i borrowed him a few 1 dollar bills because they needed them every minute at the merch table, he told me not to forget the ask them back the coming days 😉
oke back to the chain show
i liked it alot the sound was way better in the back then upfront.
Lots of people where diving etc. when the 1st. music tone started, it was a really good small club show, with alot of positive vibes, and yes not so many people knew the song “to they end” the also played that song on their LA show.
Now lets see how they will sound in a bigger club.
jeff
xXx
Awesome. Love to read stuff like this.
Underdog though… Amazing band 🙂