This diary entry is being posted a few days late because I didn't have much internet access over the last couple of days (it is Thursday now... this is Monday's diary entry)
Right now I'm sitting on a lounge chair at Andrew's house at 8:30 Monday morning waiting for everyone else to rise for our day to begin. We fly out at like 3PM this afternoon so I doubt we're going to get time to do much, but hopefully we might have time to suss somewhere cool to brunch before we bounce. It would have been nice to see a little bit of Chicago city on this trip... but I think the announcement of those cool Friday preshows kind of ruined that. I'm not too fussed, we got to go to all the rad vego places anywayz.
One thing I forgot to mention last time was all the cool Australian people we met over the weekend. I wish I'd had time to talk more but it was a pretty action packed 3 day so I can't really say I did. Our friend Ryan from Brisbane was in town as well, so it was rad to get to hang out with him abroad for a few days, he's rad.
I met some rad American people too. Everyone has been so friendly on this trip. I think I'm gonna hate life so much when I go back home. Behind at uni, back at work, massive debt, no girlfriend to hang out with etc. etc. Oh well. I'll worry about that later, here's a recap of the last couple of days:
Saturday we got up at like 10AM and headed straight to the show. Met the rad singer from Thought Crusade on the bus there. Grabbed a bite at this place across the road from the venue. I got some cheese fries. They were alright but never again, far too cheesy for my liking. A lot of amazing bands were playing today so it was a bit daunting sitting out the front waiting for it.
After some frigging around with merch (there's a recheck fee for the compulsory cloak room so they said you're best to buy anything you want before you go in), I got inside to see the last few songs of Thought Crusade. Good band. pretty straight up hardcore. Convicted were alright but pretty forgetful, just heavy, basic hardcore.
SOUL CONTROL are where it's at. Such a good band. I knew they were Krishna but for some reason I'd never checked them out because I thought they sounded like Shelter or something? Singer had one of the best stage presences I have seen in my life. So glad to have seen them. They covered Inside Out at the end of their set.
It was rad to see Betrayed again and also to get to see some of the LP songs but I think Aram was talking too much on stage and Todd didn't look too into it. (Maybe he was just out of practice?)
Ringworm were amazing. They look so metal haha. The Promise, Numb/Blind to Faith and Consumed/13 Knots were all played. Such a heavy band.
Damnation AD and 108 were both very cool. Both very passionate and very heavy bands. Also, they are both bands that I own material by but have somewhat slept on in the past. Will be keen to check more out when I get home. I was very impressed by the performance of both bands.
Trial were probably the pick of the weekend. Greg Bennick is such an intense frontman that is so confident on stage. He has something to say but at the same time he doesn’t fuck around. The songs are heavy and energetic and the crowd went mad. Are These Our Lives??????
I don’t know how I felt about Disembodied. They appealed to my childlike soft spot for massive ridiculous mosh parts but they didn’t really have enough else going for them for me to enjoy it. I think I’m getting too old to find stupid pit calls like ‘c’mon I wanna see some blood on the dancefloor’ anything but lame. I’m sure some people are really in love with the band but I certainly won’t be checking out more of their material when I get home.
After the show we headed down the street to a café called Pick Me Up to get some sick vegetarian foodz. I got some vegan French toast and it was pretty definitely a bit too massive for my liking haha. It was good food but I felt sick for a couple of hours after it.
We headed down to a little local theatre after dinner for a midnight screening of a movie called Holy Mountain. I don’t think I appreciated the experience as the time as much as I do now because of how tired I was but it was pretty cool. A guy at the theatre gave a quick introduction about the history of midnight movie screenings (sometimes certain ‘midnight movies’ were screened for a few months straight as kind of a cult thing… people wouldn’t go to see the movie itself but mainly to just hang out. Often going to see the same movies multiple many, many times). Holy Mountain itself was a pretty fucked movie. As Andrew said it was like being stuck in someone’s fucked up dream. Just full of really weird shit and with not much point at all. The highlight is definitely when some dude in the movie yells out ‘rub your clitoris on the mountain!’ and this chick proceeds to fuck the mountain hahaha. Good life. It was a really fucked movie but I don’t think it was anything more or less disposable than say something like ‘She’s Not That Into You’ (that is playing on the flight right now… while I’m sitting here writing this and listening to Arrows).
Sunday began with breakfast at an amazing vegetarian/vegan restaurant called the Chicago Diner with our friend Ryan Sim. They do vegetarian or vegan versions of American ‘diner’ style food (generally you have a choice of say scrambled egg or scrambled tofu as the vegetarian/vegan alternatives). Some of the other guys got some humungous meals that I have now forgotten but I stuck to a moderately sized vegan breakfast with ‘bacon’ strips, scrambled tofu, some fruit and some toast.
The first bands up today were Harms Way and Convicted, decent to watch but generally just forgettable moshy hardcore bands. I’m sure the kids in the pit were excited and I was bopping my head along a bit, but I certainly didn’t bother buying either bands stuff.
Blacklisted were pretty fucking cool. They busted out most of the new album, a song off the demo, the EP and Eye for an Eye off the First Blood split. George was really energetic on stage and kids were getting into it. Definitely one of the best bands in hardcore. It seemed like they were going to close with Wish (the last track off the new record) but their set got cut short by one song due to time constraints. Damn.
Have Heart were really good. I missed them on their first tour of Australia and I actually missed them in NY on Sunday night due to our delays but I was certainly impressed by how energetic the whole band is on stage, especially Pat Flynn. They only played like 6 songs though and I was bummed that Pave Paradise was not included.
Next up was Threadbare. I’d never heard them before but to my untrained ears they sounded like a fairly standard 90’s hardcore band. They reminded me a lot of 108 and Damnation AD who played the day before.
Split Lip (or Chamberlain… they actually changed their name halfway through their career) were probably the surprise hit of the weekend for me. Really melodic emotional music kind of like a cross between 90’s emo and maybe a more rocked out hardcore influenced band like Quicksand. Hearing another non-hardcore hardcore scene band be so good made me feel even dumber for not watching Guilt the day before (who were another band that evolved beyond hardcore you could say). I picked up the LP Split Lip had on sale and I’m certainly keen to be able to check it out when I get home.
Reach the Sky were a band I tried to get into many times when I was younger. I liked a lot of other Victory stuff from around that time when I got into hardcore but for some reason Reach the Sky never clicked with me. I think it was the fact that I was never at peace with the singers voice and I always felt the songs sounded a little too basic. I really wish I’d became at peace with Reach the Sky earlier than yesterday now because they really were on fire. So much energy on stage combined with a crowd that was so happy to see them. Such a good live band.
Bane were pretty amazing. Their set was a little short but they still reminded me why they are one of the most passionate and sincere bands to exist in the hardcore scene. Can We Start Again and Swan Song were definitely highlights in what was still an amazing set. Good band.
For some reason the crowd didn’t seen too into Converge but they still played really well. Bannon said some cool shit on stage and they all seemed really into it. A lot of rad songs were played including the whole of over 10 minute epic Jane Doe. I was kind of weirded out by how long they played for (they played for an hour) considering the fact that bands sets had been cut short earlier in the day but oh well.
After 2 days of waiting for it, Unbroken were up next. It was pretty crazy. A humungous amount of kids were into it. You should have seen Grant after the show! It was like he was either high, drunk or had just turned into some form of giddy child. It was really rad to get to see one of the most celebrated metallic hardcore bands of the 90s in the flesh. ‘Life.Love.Regret’ is a really classic hardcore record and while Unbroken are not my favourite band, it’s cool to know that I was able to witness a collection of really rad 90s metallic hardcore in the flesh. They were certainly about 40 times better than Disembodied haha. And I got an Unbroken shirt with Morrissey on it.
Pick Me Up was our port of call again for dinner. I stuck to just getting a side dish but ending up ending some of Ryan’s rad stir fry as well. Good life. Ryan came back home with us to lurk our internetz and then we said goodbye to a friend we won’t get to see again for a couple of months. We were going to hang out this morning but because America is this retarded place where it costs you money to not just send but to receive text messages as well and you cannot be called if you have no credit, we had no way of getting contact with each other so we decided it was easier to just say our goodbyes that night. He’s heading to London for 6 weeks on Tuesday but we’ll see him again when he gets back home. Safe travels Mr Sim.
This morning we were meant to be get up early to head off when Andrew left for work at 6 but it turns out he decided to just do a halfday at work because he was feeling a bit suck so we left about 10 when he headed into work and the morning started with me beginning this blog.
We hit up Chicago diner for brunch again this morning where I decided it was time to indulge. I got an amazing vegan choc chip milkshake and the vegan breakfast bowl which contains vegan mince, scrambled tofu, potato with 2 ‘biscuits’ (ie. Scones) on top. It was pretty massive but probably also one of the best meals I’ve eaten all week. Like most food I’ve eaten this week, it had a bit of lack of vegetables. I’m not a big fan of salad and it seems hard to get vegetables in meals you buy sometimes in any form other than salad so apart from potato, I’ve been a bit light on the vegetables lately. So I’m pretty keen to hopefully get some vegetables for dinner tonight. Maybe a vegie stir fry or something. That would be rad.
See you soon world.
Right now I'm sitting on a lounge chair at Andrew's house at 8:30 Monday morning waiting for everyone else to rise for our day to begin. We fly out at like 3PM this afternoon so I doubt we're going to get time to do much, but hopefully we might have time to suss somewhere cool to brunch before we bounce. It would have been nice to see a little bit of Chicago city on this trip... but I think the announcement of those cool Friday preshows kind of ruined that. I'm not too fussed, we got to go to all the rad vego places anywayz.
One thing I forgot to mention last time was all the cool Australian people we met over the weekend. I wish I'd had time to talk more but it was a pretty action packed 3 day so I can't really say I did. Our friend Ryan from Brisbane was in town as well, so it was rad to get to hang out with him abroad for a few days, he's rad.
I met some rad American people too. Everyone has been so friendly on this trip. I think I'm gonna hate life so much when I go back home. Behind at uni, back at work, massive debt, no girlfriend to hang out with etc. etc. Oh well. I'll worry about that later, here's a recap of the last couple of days:
Saturday we got up at like 10AM and headed straight to the show. Met the rad singer from Thought Crusade on the bus there. Grabbed a bite at this place across the road from the venue. I got some cheese fries. They were alright but never again, far too cheesy for my liking. A lot of amazing bands were playing today so it was a bit daunting sitting out the front waiting for it.
After some frigging around with merch (there's a recheck fee for the compulsory cloak room so they said you're best to buy anything you want before you go in), I got inside to see the last few songs of Thought Crusade. Good band. pretty straight up hardcore. Convicted were alright but pretty forgetful, just heavy, basic hardcore.
SOUL CONTROL are where it's at. Such a good band. I knew they were Krishna but for some reason I'd never checked them out because I thought they sounded like Shelter or something? Singer had one of the best stage presences I have seen in my life. So glad to have seen them. They covered Inside Out at the end of their set.
It was rad to see Betrayed again and also to get to see some of the LP songs but I think Aram was talking too much on stage and Todd didn't look too into it. (Maybe he was just out of practice?)
Ringworm were amazing. They look so metal haha. The Promise, Numb/Blind to Faith and Consumed/13 Knots were all played. Such a heavy band.
Damnation AD and 108 were both very cool. Both very passionate and very heavy bands. Also, they are both bands that I own material by but have somewhat slept on in the past. Will be keen to check more out when I get home. I was very impressed by the performance of both bands.
Trial were probably the pick of the weekend. Greg Bennick is such an intense frontman that is so confident on stage. He has something to say but at the same time he doesn’t fuck around. The songs are heavy and energetic and the crowd went mad. Are These Our Lives??????
I don’t know how I felt about Disembodied. They appealed to my childlike soft spot for massive ridiculous mosh parts but they didn’t really have enough else going for them for me to enjoy it. I think I’m getting too old to find stupid pit calls like ‘c’mon I wanna see some blood on the dancefloor’ anything but lame. I’m sure some people are really in love with the band but I certainly won’t be checking out more of their material when I get home.
After the show we headed down the street to a café called Pick Me Up to get some sick vegetarian foodz. I got some vegan French toast and it was pretty definitely a bit too massive for my liking haha. It was good food but I felt sick for a couple of hours after it.
We headed down to a little local theatre after dinner for a midnight screening of a movie called Holy Mountain. I don’t think I appreciated the experience as the time as much as I do now because of how tired I was but it was pretty cool. A guy at the theatre gave a quick introduction about the history of midnight movie screenings (sometimes certain ‘midnight movies’ were screened for a few months straight as kind of a cult thing… people wouldn’t go to see the movie itself but mainly to just hang out. Often going to see the same movies multiple many, many times). Holy Mountain itself was a pretty fucked movie. As Andrew said it was like being stuck in someone’s fucked up dream. Just full of really weird shit and with not much point at all. The highlight is definitely when some dude in the movie yells out ‘rub your clitoris on the mountain!’ and this chick proceeds to fuck the mountain hahaha. Good life. It was a really fucked movie but I don’t think it was anything more or less disposable than say something like ‘She’s Not That Into You’ (that is playing on the flight right now… while I’m sitting here writing this and listening to Arrows).
Sunday began with breakfast at an amazing vegetarian/vegan restaurant called the Chicago Diner with our friend Ryan Sim. They do vegetarian or vegan versions of American ‘diner’ style food (generally you have a choice of say scrambled egg or scrambled tofu as the vegetarian/vegan alternatives). Some of the other guys got some humungous meals that I have now forgotten but I stuck to a moderately sized vegan breakfast with ‘bacon’ strips, scrambled tofu, some fruit and some toast.
The first bands up today were Harms Way and Convicted, decent to watch but generally just forgettable moshy hardcore bands. I’m sure the kids in the pit were excited and I was bopping my head along a bit, but I certainly didn’t bother buying either bands stuff.
Blacklisted were pretty fucking cool. They busted out most of the new album, a song off the demo, the EP and Eye for an Eye off the First Blood split. George was really energetic on stage and kids were getting into it. Definitely one of the best bands in hardcore. It seemed like they were going to close with Wish (the last track off the new record) but their set got cut short by one song due to time constraints. Damn.
Have Heart were really good. I missed them on their first tour of Australia and I actually missed them in NY on Sunday night due to our delays but I was certainly impressed by how energetic the whole band is on stage, especially Pat Flynn. They only played like 6 songs though and I was bummed that Pave Paradise was not included.
Next up was Threadbare. I’d never heard them before but to my untrained ears they sounded like a fairly standard 90’s hardcore band. They reminded me a lot of 108 and Damnation AD who played the day before.
Split Lip (or Chamberlain… they actually changed their name halfway through their career) were probably the surprise hit of the weekend for me. Really melodic emotional music kind of like a cross between 90’s emo and maybe a more rocked out hardcore influenced band like Quicksand. Hearing another non-hardcore hardcore scene band be so good made me feel even dumber for not watching Guilt the day before (who were another band that evolved beyond hardcore you could say). I picked up the LP Split Lip had on sale and I’m certainly keen to be able to check it out when I get home.
Reach the Sky were a band I tried to get into many times when I was younger. I liked a lot of other Victory stuff from around that time when I got into hardcore but for some reason Reach the Sky never clicked with me. I think it was the fact that I was never at peace with the singers voice and I always felt the songs sounded a little too basic. I really wish I’d became at peace with Reach the Sky earlier than yesterday now because they really were on fire. So much energy on stage combined with a crowd that was so happy to see them. Such a good live band.
Bane were pretty amazing. Their set was a little short but they still reminded me why they are one of the most passionate and sincere bands to exist in the hardcore scene. Can We Start Again and Swan Song were definitely highlights in what was still an amazing set. Good band.
For some reason the crowd didn’t seen too into Converge but they still played really well. Bannon said some cool shit on stage and they all seemed really into it. A lot of rad songs were played including the whole of over 10 minute epic Jane Doe. I was kind of weirded out by how long they played for (they played for an hour) considering the fact that bands sets had been cut short earlier in the day but oh well.
After 2 days of waiting for it, Unbroken were up next. It was pretty crazy. A humungous amount of kids were into it. You should have seen Grant after the show! It was like he was either high, drunk or had just turned into some form of giddy child. It was really rad to get to see one of the most celebrated metallic hardcore bands of the 90s in the flesh. ‘Life.Love.Regret’ is a really classic hardcore record and while Unbroken are not my favourite band, it’s cool to know that I was able to witness a collection of really rad 90s metallic hardcore in the flesh. They were certainly about 40 times better than Disembodied haha. And I got an Unbroken shirt with Morrissey on it.
Pick Me Up was our port of call again for dinner. I stuck to just getting a side dish but ending up ending some of Ryan’s rad stir fry as well. Good life. Ryan came back home with us to lurk our internetz and then we said goodbye to a friend we won’t get to see again for a couple of months. We were going to hang out this morning but because America is this retarded place where it costs you money to not just send but to receive text messages as well and you cannot be called if you have no credit, we had no way of getting contact with each other so we decided it was easier to just say our goodbyes that night. He’s heading to London for 6 weeks on Tuesday but we’ll see him again when he gets back home. Safe travels Mr Sim.
This morning we were meant to be get up early to head off when Andrew left for work at 6 but it turns out he decided to just do a halfday at work because he was feeling a bit suck so we left about 10 when he headed into work and the morning started with me beginning this blog.
We hit up Chicago diner for brunch again this morning where I decided it was time to indulge. I got an amazing vegan choc chip milkshake and the vegan breakfast bowl which contains vegan mince, scrambled tofu, potato with 2 ‘biscuits’ (ie. Scones) on top. It was pretty massive but probably also one of the best meals I’ve eaten all week. Like most food I’ve eaten this week, it had a bit of lack of vegetables. I’m not a big fan of salad and it seems hard to get vegetables in meals you buy sometimes in any form other than salad so apart from potato, I’ve been a bit light on the vegetables lately. So I’m pretty keen to hopefully get some vegetables for dinner tonight. Maybe a vegie stir fry or something. That would be rad.
See you soon world.
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