Yesterday at about 11:30, I picked up The Ninja and headed out to Newport News. The plan was to drop him off for band practice and then pick up Derek and go to Richmond for the Avail show. Well, someone flaked out on the band practice, so we coerced The Ninja into going with us anyway. Even though he hates punk rock, we were pretty sure we could make him have a good time. Which we did.
The weather sucked all day (is anyone else sick of all this rain?), but we still had a pretty good drive up. We rocked out most of the time. Indecision, The Red Chord, Lamb of God, Norma Jean, the Facedown/ Blood and Ink split. You know it.
We got there and headed over to the 929 for tickets. They didn't go on sale til 5, and it was only 3:45, so we headed over to Red Dragon Tattoo to harass Burrito. We stood around looking at the flash and photos for a while, waiting for him to get there. The Ninja is seriously addicted to ink. And it's that sad addict situation where he's craving it, but has no money. Finally, he goes, "I think I'm gonna get METAL tattooed on the inside of my lip." We knew he was desperate for some ink. It could get ugly. I kind of laughed, thinking, "He'll do no such thing because #1, The Ninja is a lot of things, but metal is not one of them. #2, the inside of your lip must hurt like hell." Burrito hooked him up with a nice price, and in about three minutes, he came out with "NINJA" tattooed on the inside of his bottom lip in some cursivey-looking writing. It's beast. He confirmed that it did indeed hurt like hell, and also, I think doing something like that is pretty metal after all. Heh. I'll post a picture when I can make him hold still for a second.
We headed back over to the venue, picked up some tickets (3 bucks, not bad) and hit up 7-11 for some food and slurpees. We stood outside in the rain with some other kids that were going to the show, trying to ward off the bums and having some laughs. We called up a friend that's a little too uptight these days and harassed him on the phone for a while. It was not appreciated.
Finally, 6 pm rolled around and we went inside the 929. There were a good amount of people there, but not as many as I expected. I don't think it ended up selling out, even. Weird. The first band was a PA punk band called The Curse. Decent stuff. The singer looked exactly like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. His voice was nice and raw. Great punk rock voice. The guitars were kinda generic punk, but still sounded good. They had some catchy stuff, and ended their songs in weird places (which kept me guessing). The drummer was really great. Pretty innovative, I thought. Overall I liked em.
Next up was a Richmond band. I still don't know their name. Actually, they kept giving themselves a different name after every song. The only one I could understand was "Ipecac." Maybe that's what they're called. Anyway, I don't really care because they were freaking awful. They were out of tune, totally ripped off Fugazi, and couldn't sing. Sad.
Well, Avail took more than an hour to set up and finally get on stage. They started out by saying, "We're Avail. We're from Richmond, and you're not." They were impressive. The crowd's reaction was amazing. It might have been because they were shooting a video that night, but I think they would have gone just as crazy anyway. The place was pretty packed out by this time, and there was plenty of mic-grabbing, crowd surfing, fingerpointing, and singing along. I realized that I missed going to good punk rock shows, and wondered where all those bands have gone. Sigh. Well I never have really gotten into Avail enough to buy their CDs, except I'm sad to say that I do own their live album (and have been trying to get rid of it for about 2 years). I think I would have been going crazy, had I known their stuff. They put on a really terrific show. I don't know any of their names, so bear with me. The dude with the long beard was jumping around like some maniac A.D.D. kid, dancing, harassing the crowd, and every once in a while singing. I thought their main vocalist was extremely good looking, and every note he sang was perfect. I loved the part where he said, "Man, it's good to see people dancing with smiles on their faces instead of fear in their eyes." Then he paused for a minute, and said, "OK. Now you can have fear in your eyes." Then they started into a song and the kids ripped the place apart. It was one of the better punk shows I've been to in my day. I felt like I was missing something by not knowing their music. Maybe I should catch up.
Anyway, it was a good show. We got home at a decent hour and there was sufficient rocking out on the way back. If you people haven't listened to the Terror EP, you should do so immediately. It's freaking good. Oh yeah.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Another good oneAmber, I like Avail a lot, especially One Wrench - I haven't heard some of the earlier ones.