6-22 Appalachian Terror Unit, Menstrual Parasite, Spontaneous Noize Combustion, Bitrot, Pittsburgh @Babyland

I had high hopes that a place called Babyland might go on to become a great drunk lawless punk rock venue. Somehow exactly that happened. The space is in the basement of a building. It's a sprawling space with at least one section of it being a woodworking facility. The show was there, it was awesome.

Bitrot - Good set, good energy. They're the only local band on the bill. Fast raw echo-chamber punk rock by 2 hot ladies and a dude. Energy was good. The set was good. The crowd was into it.

Spontaneous Noize Combustion - From VA. Self described scumbags trying to create noise. They succeeded. A song into the set the guitar player had to change a guitar string. They kind of lost momentum there. Ok set, loud and fast and noisy.

Menstrual Parasite - Great band name, good band. Hardcore punk crust metal thrash noise. I enjoyed the set. Probably the best band on the set not named ATU.

Appalachian Terror Unit - Really good set. Everyone was into it, it was a rager. Punk rock in the vein of Behind Enemy Lines. Best two vocalist punk band around. Good set.

High's - Babyland, all the bands
Low's - Nothing.

6-12 KRS-One, Abstract Theory, Pretty Krissy, Dude the Hawk, CPX3, Pittsburgh @Karma

I had high hopes for this show, but in the back of my mind I knew it could end up being whack too. My fears were that with KRS-One having like 20 albums and songs from the 80's to this year, there was no telling if he would even sniff some of my favorite songs. Now, turns out he didn't play a lot of my favorites, but in the end that didn't matter. A all time dope MC is an all time dope MC.

Karma was a pretty good place for the show. I liked everything about it except they need to make a second opening to the stage room if they're going to have big shows like this there. CPX3, Dude the Hawk, Pretty Krissy - So I know which one Pretty Krissy is. I'm pretty sure Dude the Hawk was the dude with no shirt pretty must hosting the first part of the night. And CPx3 may be the name of a crew of like 6 different rappers who really had no common traits between all of them. CPx3, if I'm right about them being a group, came out and did different songs of their own. Some compiling with other artists. Some were good, some were meh, none of them were good enough for me to want to know who they were. The one high point of the first part of the night was when Pretty Krissy and the guy I'm thinking is Dude the Hawk did their last song about 'give me your password ni**a' follow by 'bitch you can't have it.' Great song, good performance. Afterthought, Pretty Krissy looked tall on stage, but she's really a short lady. Good rapper too.

Abstract Theory - I thought they were by far the best rappers from the opening sets. Two dudes, probably both white, one definitely white, lol. Come on, he was wearing a vintage Star Trek shirt. I don't know the name of any of their songs, nor had I heard them before, but I'm going to check them out in the future.

KRS-One - It was probably about an hour, or close to that, after the last group before KRS took stage. It was well worth the wait. Dude rocks the mic like no rapper I've ever seen. The freestyles were on point. The songs were on point. The life lessons were great. Dude is inspiring. He played at least portions of some real bangers like Sound of the Police, P is Free, The MC, among others. We all had a great time, and KRS destroyed shit. Best hip hop artist ever.

I'm sure I've said it before, but I got to air out my rap show grievance. I hate how many rap groups have the lyrics playing over the speakers with the beat. Is it because they don't have recordings of just the beat and the music? Is it the case that removing the words from the recorded song is extremely difficult or expensive? I really have no idea why this happens. In my eyes it makes their live set cheap as fuck. But you can tell when real MCs are on stage like KRS. Aside from the chorus of a few songs (completely acceptable and understandable), he didn't have the lyrics coming out the speaker. Because... obviously... a real MC.

Hi's - KRS-One all fucking day the dopest MC in the galaxy until I see one better, cheap drinks at Karma.

Low's - Nothing.

6-1 Code Orange, Harms Way, King Nine, Too Pure to Die, Eternal Sleep, Pittsburgh @Mr. Smalls

This show will probably go down as the best pure hardcore show in Pittsburgh this year. Killer lineup. For Pittsburgh Hardcore, this was a must go.

Eternal Sleep - We were walking in as they started playing. Killer set. They played Keep Moving and Dead Like Me and all the bangers. Heavy hardcore, Pittsburgh proud, and a great live set. Eternal Sleep is boss as fuck.

Too Pure to Die - Well, I know and really like some of their songs like X The Fuck Up and Calloused. They played the good songs. The new songs are ok. Most of the old songs are ok. I don't particularly like it when frontmen start calling the crowd weak and pussies, but that's obviously his thing. When it's your second show back after a decade hiatus, and you were never really more than a regional band in the first place, you pretty must have to take what you can get. Especially if you get to play on a bill this epic.

King Nine - Their first time in Pittsburgh, but we'd seen them before in Philly. I enjoyed the set. Nothing amazing in my opinion. They have some particularly good songs and good stage presence. I'll see them again at TIHC.

Harms Way - They killed it. On most nights they are easily the best band of the night. The songs off the new album were rippers, and they played the songs from the old that you really wanted to hear. Loved it. Humans have no value.

Code Orange - Well they pretty much pulled out all the stops on this one. The lighting was top notch, though soooo bright it burned out your retinas. I seriously had to look at the floor sometimes. But the live show was on point, the song selection was there even though I'm not a huge fan of the slow songs. But that's my opinion of many slow songs. Great set, great energy. At the end of the set they let the drone sounds play out for like 5 minutes. It was pretty much a tease of an encore. But the whole time I was thinking, what songs would they play? They already played the bangers. No dice for the encore.

Hi's - All the bands
Low's - It was all dope as fuck.