2-23 American Nightmare, No Warning, Spiritual Camp, Pittsburgh @Rex Theater

It's American Nightmare, of course we were going to go. The Rex is a good place for this show. I'm thinking close to 300 people were there. A pretty decent showing for Pittsburgh for a fast band. I think this show could have greatly benefited from a good heavy local band like Eternal Sleep or Concealed Blade or No Reason to Live or something.

Spiritual Camp - I don't particularly like this band on this show. They're more of a surf rock garage rock indie type of band. Not really a hardcore band at all. Which is ok, but it's not what I was in it for. They had a tambourine player who pretty much just wigged out the whole time. Very dancey music.

No Warning - At one point in time No Warning was really popular. The response to them was pretty average on this night. For the first half of their set pretty much one dude was moshing, and he was escorted out for some reason. I know the mosh has happened in that place before. I'm not sure what he was doing that warranted the toss. Oh well. No Warning wrapped up their set with their popular songs and the tambourine player. Good set.

American Nightmare - The good news is they're making new music. The bad news is the new music sometimes sounds more like Spiritual Camp than American Nightmare. They played most of the songs off of Background Music. I really dislike the forced curtain call. The crowd wasn't into it vociferously enough to warrant a curtain call. They came back out played one song, that's it. The old songs were great, the new songs were ok.

Highs - American Nightmare, No Warning, great weather
Lows - Not a whole lot.

2-17 Wisdom in Chains, Strength for a Reason, Line of Scrimmage, Jukai, Trail of Lies, Sanction, Break Away, Absolute Suffering, No Reason to Live, Dissent, Departed, Forced Out, Iron Price, Red Vision, Cursed Path, Foul Play, Fire in the Blood, Vile Mentality, Brick by Brick Fest, Altoona @Altoona Grand Hotel

First things first, this show was really sweet. There aren't enough fests at big hotels. We were able to get a room for under $100. It was perfect because we didn't have to buy beer from the hotel, we got that Lionshead special at Duffys for $4.99 per 12 pack. We killed something like 56 beers on Saturday. No one puked or passed out. Perfect day. The hotel was pretty much all you wanted it to be. A few different eating options in there, a bar, a nice pool and hot tub. It was really decent.

We were just a little late getting there. We missed a few bands through the day.

Vile Mentality - Missed them. I really like their band name though.

Fire in the Blood - Missed them. I really don't like their band name though.

Foul Play - Missed them.

Cursed Path - This was the first band we saw once we pulled into Altoona. They kinda sucked. Multiple of their songs were played in such a way that I thought they were fucking it up. I don't know if they were fucking it up or not, but I left their set feeling meh. Heavy band, just not good riffs and shit.

Red Vision - Missed them. At this point we were able to check into the room and take all our shit up. Get the cooler set up. All that mess.

Iron Price - I wanted to see this band, but it just didn't work out.

Forced Out - Missed them.

Departed - Missed them.

Dissent - This band was pretty good. I liked their metal riffs. It was cool.

No Reason to Live - Pittsburgh metalcore. They were better this time around than any other time I've ever seen them. Decent mosh response, good band on this day. I think I'm going to download their new album.

Absolute Suffering - Missed them.

Break Away - Good band. Youth crew style straight edge hardcore, but harder than what you think when you think youth crew style. I liked them when we saw them at TIHC, I liked them this time around too.

Sanction - Really really good. I hadn't heard this band before, but I'm going to get into it now. A heavy hardcore band from Long Island. Relatively new band. Good riffs, good mosh, just good in general.

Trail of Lies - Missed them.

Jukai - Jukai is a killer good heavy band. Party animals perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, they are always heavy and good.

Line of Scrimmage - We saw them once at East Coast Tsunami a while ago. They were ok then. We didn't watch them this time around.

Strength for a Reason - I like this band a bit. But we didn't watch them this time.

Wisdom in Chains - The main reason we went to this fest. Really if Wisdom wasn't playing we probably wouldn't have spent the money for the trip. They killed it of course. Played about 30 minutes, per usual. They didn't make any shocking song selections. Maybe the omission of Cap City was a little bit of a shocker. But when you have as many good songs as they have then something gotta give. Great set like usual. Great singalongs.

Hi's - The hotel, def going back next year even if Wisdom doesn't play.

Low's - Not much. The Snow and the cold primarily.