I'm going to do something I never do, a review! BNB Superbowl of Hardcore 2013 in NYC.
The Old Firm Casuals Led by my boy from Rancid on guitar and vocals, was the only Oi band on the fest. I really liked them. Alot of uppedy sing along whooa type parts, sucks the crowd wasnt feeling them but I'd go see them again, Dude rips on guitar.
Altercation I was like who the fuck is Altercation, but they bought it. Theyre a band who put out like one album in 1987 and broke up. They sounded alot like hardcore today, bands like Rotting Out and shit like that. It's like they did it when it wasn't cool. Really enjoyed their set, alot of 2 steppers.
Take Offense Wut! was this band cool as fuck. their drummer was off the chain playing on point with the guitar chugs, they mixed their style from everything to hardcore, punk, thrash and they had a skater surfer sound/vibe to them. I wish I went and saw them last wedsday but I was like fuck it I'll see them at the bnb bowl.
District 9 One of the best bands to see live. Fucking singer looks like Method Man and they are heavy. They are all black except for the guitar player. First time I saw them in 09 I was like wuts going on? rap intermission? but this band is tight, hard, heavy and fucking brings it with the flow type lyrics and I definately got murdered by a 200+ dude jumping off the 5 foot high stage right on my face. I love D9. Wish they would play more.
Bane One of my favorite bands to see live. Sing alongs, stage dives, energy, passion. This band is everything that hardcore represents and I fucking love it. I know their songs just from seeing them live. People go to Bane shows only hearing Bane on record and say I'm not feeling Bane, they leave a Bane show and Bane is their favorite band. Alot of fun.
Breakdown Sounded good. Room filled up with probably close to 5,000 people. The anticipation for Judge was killing me I was having a fucking panic attack, like littereally, I wanted to go outside so bad, but I was like its gonna be so packed in here I'll never make it back up to the front or at least not in time for Judge. They were ok They should play again not before Judge's first show in 20 years.
Judge Every year its whos headlinging tih whos headlingin bnb bowl? every year someone says Judge and its not true. This year my man Mike from Mouthpiece said Judge and my dude came correct. They show sold out online in 30 seconds, I almost killed myself.but they added a second day cause it sold so fast. I first got into Judge when i was around 17.. I didnt really know what straight edge or hardcore was about, I know i liked Pantera and Metallica and Slayer around that time I started getting into harcore and the dude who used to tattoo me said this band was around in the 80's theyre done for good but heres their CD. it collected dust for years until I found out the guitar player from Youth of Today also played in Judge, jammed it ever since. Anyway, After Breakdown, everyone packed in to the front, I was like dead center of the room. They took out all the house equipment and backlining so it took a good 20mins to setup and do sound check. My heart was just racing, i dont think i ever been to a show like this before this many people 4-5 generations. people from 18-50 with judge hammers tattoooed on them. Me and my buddy joe were just talking it seemed to kill time cause we werre both anxious as fuck. they lowereed the banner it was a huge black banner with the crossed judge hammers. lights went out.... star wars theme began... complete silence.. they opened up with Take me away, which has about a min long intro to it. place freaked out.... exploded... pits everywhere. 50 stage divers at a time. absolute madness. then Mike Judge came on stage looking exactly the same this is the guy who said never again, rumors of depresssion agoraphobia put to reast, there he was. lookin like a fucking roadworker haha and started singing and the entire room was singing along. we were all itting, itwas a huge pit, everyone was in it. I never been to a show like this. they played for about an hr. I just remember some 40 year old asian hipster lookin fool kept grabbing me and we were singing along in each others face. I swear, if ape was the singer of a band, the lyrics would be similar to judge. Theyre basically all about drug addicts, sluts, abusers, child molesters, and killing them off. back in the 80,s when people were giving bands like youth of today and bold issues for being too militant judge said basically fuck you and became militant. anyway, the set was just that the whole time everyone singing along and pitting, at one point there was like 300 people on the stage singing along. One of the top sets I've seen in my life, never been to a hardcore show like this.
Bitter End Best dudes ever from Texas. They arent on tour, just flew out for they show. They play alot of 2 step style breakdown new school shit. I dig them, I actually got there early to see them then walked the city a little. Cool set,nothing I didnt expect. Would def see this band again.
Indecision Holy Fuck! I would say best surprise of the weekend. I never really listened to these guys, and girl who shredssss on guitar because they broke up years ago and formed a band called Most Precious Blood which I wasnt really into so I guess I figured I wouldnt like Indecision, you know what? I was fucking wrong. Talk about a room going from empty to full while they were setting up. I stood back, had the woman with me. Every song was hard as hard can fucking get. I mean it was like fast riff, heavy breakdown over and over again. crowd went absolutely fucking ballistic during their set, you woulda thought everyone was smashed, but it was still only like 5pm... I already got tickets to see them aagain at Long Island fest in a month. Can't wait. Total shocker I thought i was going to watch 2 songs and head for the shitter, but they absolutely killed it. they also bought a little like technical melodic style to their shit. it was crazy cant wait to see them again.
Crown Of Thornz Lord Ezec seems like a cool dude, but he fronts the band Skarhead too, they sound exactly the same. I swear they even play the same songs. All their songs are about money drugs and shit, i dont know just not my style. Ezec seems like a cool dude. I love the band Icepick he's in with Jamey Jasta, but this band and the other one he's in I just cant get into the thugcore stuff. I'm glad they still play cause alot of people dig them, just not my thing.
Madball It's Madball in NYC. That's all I have to say about that.
Kill Your Idols A punk thrash type band. Another reunion, I swear this was the fucking year of reunions. Everyone went too crazy for this band. Basically crazy fast riffs cool solos the whole set. Some dickbag was smoking weed like right behind me and blowing it directly in my face the first 10 mins, i managed to "accidently" bow him once and he dropped the jazz, but eventually he put it out. I dont care about niggas smokin, but for fucks sakes you can go outside theres rentry, or go in a dark corner dont blow itright on to me, lol... anyway, it was an experience to see KYI to say the least. niggas dressed like sanata and bananas and shit everywhere. old ass dude from Murphys Law hard moshing like he was 20. good times.
Judge Round 2... basically the same thing except I wasnt as nervous and there was a slight less people there so you could fucking breathe a little, but i donno it was still packed, maybe it was just cause they decided to put the fucking fans on, lol. they opened up with the same song, same thing happened, my wife was scared to death for the first minute till the pit settled in the areas where the pit was going to be, but i made sure she was ok, we had a great spot. they switched the set up a little, played a cover and this dude came out and ripped the harmonica to a hardcore song. The last song was the New York song so the stage was covered in bodies again, I had a fucking blast. I wish I could do it everyday. Seeing Judge was a dream come true and being there the first day with all my friends and the second day with my wife and friends. It was awesome. Very special weekend for me. Judge is one of the reasons I am and a band that inspires me through song and to be able to live the live experience not once but 2 days in a row was something I'll never forget. Now i get to see them at tih in August! hahha
What a great way to kick off the summer. After a long day sitting packing up my dorm, then sitting in the car with my mom for roughly three hours, I got home and relaxed for a bit and said hi to some family. Then about two hours later, my friend Ben came by and we started making our way to the city. This was my first time at The Rickshaw Stop, and I liked the venue. When we got there, there was a fairly long line, and hipsters were in abundance. We got in and thankfully there was a bar right near the entrance, which distracted people from getting to the stage immediately, so me and my friend were able to get right in front of the stage. There was no barrier or anything, just a stage that was about thigh high. Deafheaven had all their gear set up in front of Boris' and it was a tight squeeze that would prove to be a little problematic later in the set. Around 8:40, one the guitarist from Deafheaven started tuning his guitar and then played a chord that was masked in reverb and chorus then walked off stage. They let it drone for a few minutes then they all got on stage, a little bit at a time. And their set started.
I ended up right in front of the vocalist and the main guitarist, which would prove to be the favorable spot for crowd interaction in the set. Deafheaven put on an absolutely brilliant set. They all sounded great and the mood they set was really cathartic and I just let loose during the majority of the set. It was nice to just be able let it out after my first year of college. They played a mix of tracks from their debut, Roads To Judah, and two new songs from their upcoming LP, Sunbather. The whole time they were playing their set I was headbanging to my heart's content. The vocalist, George Clarke, had such great stage presence. It was obvious he took his art completely serious and had the most metal facial expressions I've ever seen. And his black metal shriek is absolutely beautiful. I was really happy it wasn't drowned out by all the guitars and drums. All the band was fairly animated yet completely serious the whole time and it was nice to see that from a band. During their performance of Unrequited, the singer invited the crowd to come closer as he stood in the small space between the stage and the monitor and got really close. We were practically face to face at one point, and that's always a cool feel. Another notable moment in the set was during Violet, part of the drumset started falling of the stage, due to the continuous beating on the bass drum. The bass drum and ride cymbal stand were nearing off the stage and people from the crowd started lifting 'em back up. After that song the drummer had to reconfigure his kit and they brought out a sand bag to keep the bass drum in place. DIY at its finest. Overall, this was probably one of the best opening set I've seen. Hands down. Hopefully I'll be seeing them doing a headlining set in July with our favorite Russian on the board.
Deafheaven Dream House Violet Unrequited Sunbather
After some time in between, Boris started set up their gear. Amps and pedals for days. Both Wata and Takeshi each had three pre-amp and cabinet combos. I knew I was in for a loud time. They come on the stage to quickly sound check, then came off, then came back on for an awesome set.
Boris were absolutely monolithically heavy. They started off the set with the song Huge off Amplifier Worship and it was just that. I know everybody probably says this, but it's kind of weird seeing a petite Japanese woman making such absolutely heavy and distorted sounds. But of course she wasn't alone. It was probably Takeshi who was the loudest that evening, but I might be saying that because I was right in front of him the whole night. The set was really cool. Attention Please was actually a really enjoyable song the hear live, and has me reconsidering listening to the whole album. Their cover of MBV's Sometimes was really cool, but got almost uncomfortably loud at that point. But I suppose that fits seeing as how it's Boris covering My Bloody Valentine, both being bands known for their loud performances. The rest of the set was great, and the last two songs before Flood were probably my favorites of their performance, besides Flood. I thought it was a little disappointing more people in the audience weren't as visually enthusiastic as myself, but what can you do? Flood was really amazing live, my only minor complaint was that they didn't really do anything off of Flood 1, besides the really loud ending. I know it's probably impossible to replicate the majority of Flood 1, but it would've been nice if they had just played the riff for a little bit. Either way, that was a great way to end set and I went HAM during the climax of the song. Both performance that evening were top notch.
Boris 1. Huge 2. Attention Please 3. Sometimes 4. 16:47:52 5. 冥合 6. Flood
After the show I talked to George from Deafheaven and was really nice and grateful for the support.
Comments
The Old Firm Casuals
Led by my boy from Rancid on guitar and vocals, was the only Oi band on the fest. I really liked them. Alot of uppedy sing along whooa type parts, sucks the crowd wasnt feeling them but I'd go see them again, Dude rips on guitar.
Altercation
I was like who the fuck is Altercation, but they bought it. Theyre a band who put out like one album in 1987 and broke up. They sounded alot like hardcore today, bands like Rotting Out and shit like that. It's like they did it when it wasn't cool. Really enjoyed their set, alot of 2 steppers.
Take Offense
Wut! was this band cool as fuck. their drummer was off the chain playing on point with the guitar chugs, they mixed their style from everything to hardcore, punk, thrash and they had a skater surfer sound/vibe to them. I wish I went and saw them last wedsday but I was like fuck it I'll see them at the bnb bowl.
District 9
One of the best bands to see live. Fucking singer looks like Method Man and they are heavy. They are all black except for the guitar player. First time I saw them in 09 I was like wuts going on? rap intermission? but this band is tight, hard, heavy and fucking brings it with the flow type lyrics and I definately got murdered by a 200+ dude jumping off the 5 foot high stage right on my face. I love D9. Wish they would play more.
Bane
One of my favorite bands to see live. Sing alongs, stage dives, energy, passion. This band is everything that hardcore represents and I fucking love it. I know their songs just from seeing them live. People go to Bane shows only hearing Bane on record and say I'm not feeling Bane, they leave a Bane show and Bane is their favorite band. Alot of fun.
Breakdown
Sounded good. Room filled up with probably close to 5,000 people. The anticipation for Judge was killing me I was having a fucking panic attack, like littereally, I wanted to go outside so bad, but I was like its gonna be so packed in here I'll never make it back up to the front or at least not in time for Judge. They were ok They should play again not before Judge's first show in 20 years.
Judge
Every year its whos headlinging tih whos headlingin bnb bowl? every year someone says Judge and its not true. This year my man Mike from Mouthpiece said Judge and my dude came correct. They show sold out online in 30 seconds, I almost killed myself.but they added a second day cause it sold so fast. I first got into Judge when i was around 17.. I didnt really know what straight edge or hardcore was about, I know i liked Pantera and Metallica and Slayer around that time I started getting into harcore and the dude who used to tattoo me said this band was around in the 80's theyre done for good but heres their CD. it collected dust for years until I found out the guitar player from Youth of Today also played in Judge, jammed it ever since. Anyway, After Breakdown, everyone packed in to the front, I was like dead center of the room. They took out all the house equipment and backlining so it took a good 20mins to setup and do sound check. My heart was just racing, i dont think i ever been to a show like this before this many people 4-5 generations. people from 18-50 with judge hammers tattoooed on them. Me and my buddy joe were just talking it seemed to kill time cause we werre both anxious as fuck. they lowereed the banner it was a huge black banner with the crossed judge hammers. lights went out.... star wars theme began... complete silence.. they opened up with Take me away, which has about a min long intro to it. place freaked out.... exploded... pits everywhere. 50 stage divers at a time. absolute madness. then Mike Judge came on stage looking exactly the same this is the guy who said never again, rumors of depresssion agoraphobia put to reast, there he was. lookin like a fucking roadworker haha and started singing and the entire room was singing along. we were all itting, itwas a huge pit, everyone was in it. I never been to a show like this. they played for about an hr. I just remember some 40 year old asian hipster lookin fool kept grabbing me and we were singing along in each others face. I swear, if ape was the singer of a band, the lyrics would be similar to judge. Theyre basically all about drug addicts, sluts, abusers, child molesters, and killing them off. back in the 80,s when people were giving bands like youth of today and bold issues for being too militant judge said basically fuck you and became militant. anyway, the set was just that the whole time everyone singing along and pitting, at one point there was like 300 people on the stage singing along. One of the top sets I've seen in my life, never been to a hardcore show like this.
Bitter End
Best dudes ever from Texas. They arent on tour, just flew out for they show. They play alot of 2 step style breakdown new school shit. I dig them, I actually got there early to see them then walked the city a little. Cool set,nothing I didnt expect. Would def see this band again.
Indecision
Holy Fuck! I would say best surprise of the weekend. I never really listened to these guys, and girl who shredssss on guitar because they broke up years ago and formed a band called Most Precious Blood which I wasnt really into so I guess I figured I wouldnt like Indecision, you know what? I was fucking wrong. Talk about a room going from empty to full while they were setting up. I stood back, had the woman with me. Every song was hard as hard can fucking get. I mean it was like fast riff, heavy breakdown over and over again. crowd went absolutely fucking ballistic during their set, you woulda thought everyone was smashed, but it was still only like 5pm... I already got tickets to see them aagain at Long Island fest in a month. Can't wait. Total shocker I thought i was going to watch 2 songs and head for the shitter, but they absolutely killed it. they also bought a little like technical melodic style to their shit. it was crazy cant wait to see them again.
Crown Of Thornz
Lord Ezec seems like a cool dude, but he fronts the band Skarhead too, they sound exactly the same. I swear they even play the same songs. All their songs are about money drugs and shit, i dont know just not my style. Ezec seems like a cool dude. I love the band Icepick he's in with Jamey Jasta, but this band and the other one he's in I just cant get into the thugcore stuff. I'm glad they still play cause alot of people dig them, just not my thing.
Madball
It's Madball in NYC. That's all I have to say about that.
Kill Your Idols
A punk thrash type band. Another reunion, I swear this was the fucking year of reunions. Everyone went too crazy for this band. Basically crazy fast riffs cool solos the whole set. Some dickbag was smoking weed like right behind me and blowing it directly in my face the first 10 mins, i managed to "accidently" bow him once and he dropped the jazz, but eventually he put it out. I dont care about niggas smokin, but for fucks sakes you can go outside theres rentry, or go in a dark corner dont blow itright on to me, lol... anyway, it was an experience to see KYI to say the least. niggas dressed like sanata and bananas and shit everywhere. old ass dude from Murphys Law hard moshing like he was 20. good times.
Judge
Round 2... basically the same thing except I wasnt as nervous and there was a slight less people there so you could fucking breathe a little, but i donno it was still packed, maybe it was just cause they decided to put the fucking fans on, lol. they opened up with the same song, same thing happened, my wife was scared to death for the first minute till the pit settled in the areas where the pit was going to be, but i made sure she was ok, we had a great spot. they switched the set up a little, played a cover and this dude came out and ripped the harmonica to a hardcore song. The last song was the New York song so the stage was covered in bodies again, I had a fucking blast. I wish I could do it everyday. Seeing Judge was a dream come true and being there the first day with all my friends and the second day with my wife and friends. It was awesome. Very special weekend for me. Judge is one of the reasons I am and a band that inspires me through song and to be able to live the live experience not once but 2 days in a row was something I'll never forget. Now i get to see them at tih in August! hahha
What a great way to kick off the summer. After a long day sitting packing up my dorm, then sitting in the car with my mom for roughly three hours, I got home and relaxed for a bit and said hi to some family. Then about two hours later, my friend Ben came by and we started making our way to the city. This was my first time at The Rickshaw Stop, and I liked the venue. When we got there, there was a fairly long line, and hipsters were in abundance. We got in and thankfully there was a bar right near the entrance, which distracted people from getting to the stage immediately, so me and my friend were able to get right in front of the stage. There was no barrier or anything, just a stage that was about thigh high. Deafheaven had all their gear set up in front of Boris' and it was a tight squeeze that would prove to be a little problematic later in the set. Around 8:40, one the guitarist from Deafheaven started tuning his guitar and then played a chord that was masked in reverb and chorus then walked off stage. They let it drone for a few minutes then they all got on stage, a little bit at a time. And their set started.
I ended up right in front of the vocalist and the main guitarist, which would prove to be the favorable spot for crowd interaction in the set. Deafheaven put on an absolutely brilliant set. They all sounded great and the mood they set was really cathartic and I just let loose during the majority of the set. It was nice to just be able let it out after my first year of college. They played a mix of tracks from their debut, Roads To Judah, and two new songs from their upcoming LP, Sunbather. The whole time they were playing their set I was headbanging to my heart's content. The vocalist, George Clarke, had such great stage presence. It was obvious he took his art completely serious and had the most metal facial expressions I've ever seen. And his black metal shriek is absolutely beautiful. I was really happy it wasn't drowned out by all the guitars and drums. All the band was fairly animated yet completely serious the whole time and it was nice to see that from a band. During their performance of Unrequited, the singer invited the crowd to come closer as he stood in the small space between the stage and the monitor and got really close. We were practically face to face at one point, and that's always a cool feel. Another notable moment in the set was during Violet, part of the drumset started falling of the stage, due to the continuous beating on the bass drum. The bass drum and ride cymbal stand were nearing off the stage and people from the crowd started lifting 'em back up. After that song the drummer had to reconfigure his kit and they brought out a sand bag to keep the bass drum in place. DIY at its finest. Overall, this was probably one of the best opening set I've seen. Hands down. Hopefully I'll be seeing them doing a headlining set in July with our favorite Russian on the board.
Deafheaven
Dream House
Violet
Unrequited
Sunbather
After some time in between, Boris started set up their gear. Amps and pedals for days. Both Wata and Takeshi each had three pre-amp and cabinet combos. I knew I was in for a loud time. They come on the stage to quickly sound check, then came off, then came back on for an awesome set.
Boris were absolutely monolithically heavy. They started off the set with the song Huge off Amplifier Worship and it was just that. I know everybody probably says this, but it's kind of weird seeing a petite Japanese woman making such absolutely heavy and distorted sounds. But of course she wasn't alone. It was probably Takeshi who was the loudest that evening, but I might be saying that because I was right in front of him the whole night. The set was really cool. Attention Please was actually a really enjoyable song the hear live, and has me reconsidering listening to the whole album. Their cover of MBV's Sometimes was really cool, but got almost uncomfortably loud at that point. But I suppose that fits seeing as how it's Boris covering My Bloody Valentine, both being bands known for their loud performances. The rest of the set was great, and the last two songs before Flood were probably my favorites of their performance, besides Flood. I thought it was a little disappointing more people in the audience weren't as visually enthusiastic as myself, but what can you do? Flood was really amazing live, my only minor complaint was that they didn't really do anything off of Flood 1, besides the really loud ending. I know it's probably impossible to replicate the majority of Flood 1, but it would've been nice if they had just played the riff for a little bit. Either way, that was a great way to end set and I went HAM during the climax of the song. Both performance that evening were top notch.
Boris
1. Huge
2. Attention Please
3. Sometimes
4. 16:47:52
5. 冥合
6. Flood
After the show I talked to George from Deafheaven and was really nice and grateful for the support.
Deafheaven: 9.25/10
Boris: 9/10
Boris = 6 songs
6 + 4 = 11 8-}