Review: Title Fight/Touche Amore/Break Even/Headaches, Old Museum, September 8 2011

The Old Museum. Is there a stranger place for a hardcore show? For what could possibly be the best hardcore/punk show of the year? There probably is, but I can't think of any more odd than a 120 year old heritage building that used to hold a museum and is used mainly for orchestral stuff now.

That being said, it was a bloody nice and big venue inside. A huge stage, great lighting a more than adequate PA and lots of space in front of the stage. The problem was, being the kind of building it is, they took the "no moshing" rule to an extreme. Throughout the course of the night we were repeatedly warned that if one person stage dived or got out of control, the show would be over immediately.

Locals Headaches were up first and played to a fairly big crowd (of people wearing mainly La Dispute shirts). They were solid as always, but played only about a 20 minute set.

Break Even are the Australian band doing the whole tour with the Americans. They put on a solid set with the crowd really getting worked up and into it.

The crowd participation was closely scrutinised by the security on the stage. If it looked like one person was even close to getting out of control, they bore down on them like a hawk. At one point, someone jumped up to sing along and grabbed the lead singer's shirt. He was ejected quickly.

The guitarist from Fires of Waco was standing in front of me in the crowd and Break Even passed the microphone down to him to sing a song. The security didn't like that either. They kept trying to grab it back out of hands, despite the band reassuring him it was okay.

Touche Amore was the band I was really excited for. Their unique style of hardcore lends so well to a live setting and they just blew everyone away.

The set was quite heavy with songs from their latest album Parting the Sea Between the Brightness and Me, which I managed to pick up a special Australian tour 12" press of at the show for $20. In fact, all their merch was $20. Good on them!

The crowd was very well behaved following the repeated warnings by people before and during the set. But then again, they didn't need to get on stage to get involved, because the lead singer kept coming down to the crowd for sing alongs.

It was great to watch from the side of the stage. If you turned away from watching the band at any point and saw me, you would've seen a guy holding a camera and screaming along to the lyrics while pumping his hands in the air and occasionally taking a photo. To say I enjoyed it was an understatement.

Everyone cleared out after Touche Amore. I honestly thought they wouldn't come back for Title Fight, but as the guitar started swelling up, you could see everyone running back in. I don't know much about this band having only listened to their album Shed once or twice, but they were goddamn enjoyable live. Their punk/hardcore/orgcore style was great fun and led to a lot of guitar jumps. A lot.

I was standing next to another photographer on the side of the stage and we kept having competitions to see who could get the better guitar jump on film. It was a tough contest, but I like to think we both won, by just watching this band.

By the time they announced their last song, you could tell that things were about to get hectic. The crowd had been fairly well behaved but they were itching to really get into the music. Apparently Title Fight are always about stage dives.

When they started playing YoureYeah everyone started bumrushing the stage. People started jumping into the crowd and moshing like crazy. Security tried to stop them and it got quite physical. One of the "volunteers" (not one of the security guards) picked up a kid and tried to throw him off the stage to get him out of the way. The band manager did not take kind to this and tackled this volunteer. Right in front of me. The volunteer looked so scared and took off running.

Needless to say, halfway through the song the power was cut and all you could hear was the drums. The bass player threw down his guitar in disgust and the show was over.

I tried to get some photos of it at this point, but my flash ran out of batteries and it was dark. Of course it would happen at this point.

I have no anger towards the security at this gig. They did their job well. Moshing and stage dives were banned and they enforced it well. The crowd went along with it fine too. It was actually a job well done by all to keep a hardcore show in quite good check. My beef goes to the organiser. Why choose this venue? You know that the crowd was going to behave exactly like it did. And you know the venue bans it. So why have the show there? We were actually just lucky that everyone was so well behaved and the gig went as long as it did.

Still, a great night all around. So happy to photograph it. You can view the full gallery over at AltMusicHub.

Blog Update

Apologies readers. I've been a bit slack lately with blog updates. As I'm sure you're aware, I've started taking concert photos more often for more than just shits and giggles. The result of this taking up a whole bunch of my free time, coupled with work, travelling for work, girlfriend and napping has seen me not update as often as I would like.

It's not that I don't want to. I have a "To Blog" list in my email drafts box that's huge. It'll get done soon. I promise. I'll still bring you all the concert announcements. They won't be within 2 minutes of the announcement, like other music blogs, but I'll put them up in plenty of time. I'll still post all the rants, mix CDs, photos, reviews and other goodies whenever I get a chance too. Especially Free Music Friday. I love that.

So no, I haven't forgotten about you. It's just I get to go places now and take photos of people playing instruments. And jumping. While playing instruments.

Stay tuned this week. I'll be pumping through my "To Blog" list. Which will hopefully also include some web page improvements all around.

Meanwhile, enjoy my recent galleries for AltMusicHub.

Title Fight/Touche Amore/Break Even/Headaches, Old Museum, September 8 2011
Man Overboard/I Am Villain, The Globe, September 3 2011
Jim Ward/Jud Campbell, Alhambra, August 13 2011
The Get Up Kids/City Riots/We Set Sail, August 5 2011
Periphery/Tesseract/Iron Hide, July 29 2011

Touche Amore/Title Fight

The first quarter of this year has been amazing for me and concerts. It's pretty much been better than the last 10+ years combined. I'm a bit bummed now that there's not much going on, and where I was going to see gigs two or three times a week, I'm now down to barely one a month. I figured the rest of the year would be pretty meh.

But then, I heard about this tour.

Both bands, Touche Amore and Title Fight, have put out great albums in the last few weeks. Especially Touche Amore. I actually only listened to it for the first time today, but following their La Dispute split last year, I knew to expect some awesomeness. And they deliver. Both of them deliver.

In celebration on both great albums, they're touring together out to Australia later this year. September 8, at the HiFi. It's a scarily large venue for them.

EDIT: So I jumped the gun before the "official" announcement. Turns out it's an all-ages gig at the Old Museum now. The crowd size which fits them much better.

Both bands lean on the harder edge of punk, Touche Amore more so.

Check out both bands, and prepare for some musical awesomeness:
http://toucheamore.com/
http://www.myspace.com/titlefight

日本！

As most of you probably don't know, I'm a huge Japan-o-phile. I studied the language for 7 years, went to a Japanese run high-school as the token Australian student for 2 years and my best and oldest mate lives there. Mere metres away from the ocean in Odaiba.

Everything about Japan is cool, even the construction signs:

When I heard about the earthquake/tsunami, I was a mess. I'd only seen Nick a few weeks before when he came to Wet n Wild for my birthday, but since then he'd gone back to Japan. The next day was crazy as I tried to text and call him, but then he finally sent me an email (of all things) that he was fine and at Starbucks getting coffee. Only in Japan...

But it made me think. Only a few months ago I was in the Brisbane floods and thought that was the end of the world. In the grand scheme of natural disasters in the last 6 months, I got off the most light. I am lucky. Japan, not lucky at all.

I wanted to do my part, and I was looking for a way to donate. Then I stumbled open this: VS. The Earthquake. It's a mix album of rare/B-Sides recorded by some awesome bands, with the profits going to relief in Japan. So not only am I helping, I am getting some kick ass music from bands such as The Swellers, The Wonder Years, Transit, Daytrader, Such Gold and Title Fight. But the best part? There's a live recording of my favourite La Dispute song at the gig I was at. Unfortunately you can't really hear me sing. Well, that's fortunate for you all.

So do your bit, even if it's just getting this album. It's great music for a great cause.

FREE MUSIC!

I've got a bunch of free music for you. And it's not even Friday yet.

Devin Townsend
This man is a music machine. When he's not pushing out great metal albums for Strapping Young Lad, he's putting together great music under his own name. And this year he'll be putting out two albums of solo material. To get a taste of what's to come, you can download a free 5-track EP right here.

Title Fight
Another one of those melodic hardcore/pop punk cross over bands that have been emerging from late, except with a twist: I actually like Title Fight. Their debut LP is coming out very soon, so they've put out a free MP3 for everyone to salivate over.

San Cisco
These boys (and girl!) are from my birth place, Perth. More specifically, Fremantle, home of the Bon Scott statue and a park bench of many stories (according to Bek after a few beers at Little Creatures). They do a style of dream-pop, very similar to Beach House and Girls. Being from Perth, you know they've got a bit of rep (it's hard to be a bad band over there, the scene is tough and unforgiving). They've got two free tracks you can download from this press-page.

Top Shelf Records
And finally, the company Top Shelf Records are celebrating their fifth birthday. And in celebration, their giving away a bunch of albums for free downloads. Now pay attention, you must do this. Click here. Download it. Listen to at least Caravels. Your life will be better for it. Trust me.