7-27 This is Hardcore, Ramallah BFB set, Madball, Terror, Death Threat, Skarhead, Cipher, Kill Verona, Broken Teeth, Reserving Dirtnaps, Jagged Visions, Philly @Union Transfer

As always, we were super stoked for This is Hardcore Fest. Philly is a great place for these shows and we've pretty much got this trip figured out. Like last year, the Parkway Inn in Springfield PA was the perfect spot. Twice through our 5 day stay we had different riff raff knock on the door looking for various things. First the dude said, "is the lady working?". Lol. We died. No hookers in our room. The second time was some vagrant carrying a big garbage bag and he was like "I'm supposed to rent this room?" I was like, uhhh no, we are. Then he left. Fantastic. The Springfield Diner across the street was the best like always. Had a great time with the lodging situation.

Got to the first night pretty much on time, but with the line and whatnot, we missed the first few bands.

Jagged Visions - I like about half of their songs on recordings. Sometimes they have shit lyrics though. I wanted to see them, but it wasn't meant to be. I've seen them before and thought it was ok.

Reserving Dirtnaps - I wasn't too keen on seeing this band. I thought everything I listened to beforehand was pretty uninspired. Missed them.

Broken Teeth - They came from the UK for this show. Good band. I thought they sounded pretty good live. Standard beatdown type band. Good set, fun singer with his long flowing locks.

Kill Verona - We watched some songs. Hardly anyone cared. They're way too soft, and with only a few decent songs. Philly band.

Cipher - They were the first band of the fest that I really wanted to see. They were very good. I like their choppy beatdowns and the the singer's lyrical style is pretty much unique within hardcore. The crowd response was pretty good. Not intense throughout but you knew their good songs. But they didn't play The Fruits of Toil, just like they didn't play it at Sincerity Fest a few years back. Sucks because that's their best song in my opinion. Still a solid set, very enjoyable.

Skarhead - It's amazing how little respect they got from the crowd. I guess this style of hardcore doesn't quite resonate with the newer hardcore crowd that got into hardcore through metalcore than punk, this kind of middle of the road hardcore style, not crazy heavy, somewhat of a punk rock feel in terms of a singalong style. Not a great band for the kill everyone mosh. They played good. I love Danny Diablo's shoes, some super high top silver sneakers. They were good, but the crowd was less into this than Cypher. They played all the hits, Dogs of War, Drugs Money and Sex, all of em.

Death Threat - We skipped out on this band. DT was one of my favorite bands in high school, but after a few times of them no-showing at shows that I drove like 3 hours each way for, I somewhat lost my fervor for them.

Terror - You know Terror always kills it. Top notch set by Scott Vogel, and pretty good song selection. I was disappointed in the crowd a little bit. There was barely enough people up close for stage diving, but it was going on anyways. The mosh was good, the singalongs were good. Maybe this was just a down night for the usual TIHC energy? I thought everyone went off all the time for Terror. They should. Picked up a sick shirt after the set.

Madball - The disappointing of all disappointing crowd reactions. Again an example of people maybe not being so into their type of hardcore, like Skarhead. Now the response was much better than Skarhead got, but it's freaking Madball. I felt like it was a very Pittsburgh quality response. They have so many great songs they obviously can't play them all, but they pretty much killed the setlist. Opening with Can't Stop Wont Stop was a great choice, a rager. Agnostic Front cover, another great choice.

Ramallah playing Blood for Blood songs - Destroyed it. Played Love Song, All Fucked Up, Living in Exile, and more. White Trash Rob is a madman on the vocals. They destroyed it. People went off, it was a great time.

Thursday was a success. Great show. Sold out crowd, but they didn't fully show up until Ramallah BFB. I should have got the shirt.

Best bands:
1 Ramallah BFB
2 Madball
3 Terror

7-14 Warped Tour, The Adolescents, Alestorm, Anti-Flag, The Ataris, Big D and the Kids Table, Candiria, GWAR, Hatebreed, Knocked Loose, Municipal Waste, Sick of It All, Street Dogs, Valiant Thorr, poop bands, Burgettstown @Keybank Pavilion

I didn't think I'd ever go to another Warped Tour. But the lineup for this year had a good amount of bands that I really like, so that's kind of cool. I knew that because it was Warped Tour the song selection would be a bit off for my liking, but worthwhile none the less. It was like $50. We pregamed pretty well beforehand. Fuck the parking situation, we seriously were at the Keybank Pavilion driving through the parking low for 45 minutes. So fucking pissed off about that. We got pretty greased up once we were finally parked.

poop bands - Yep, there were tons of those. I'm going to try to put these chronologically, but I lost the lineup paper so I'm sure my memory of order is jacked.

Anti-Flag - I was borderline horrified by the lack of bashing Donald Trump. I was hoping for some serious trashing. They didn't play House Destruction Party or a ton of other essentials, but the set was still good. There was one funny time when they just started playing Fuck Police Brutality. The one security guy who was working in front of the barrier who was a black guy started cracking up. The look on his face was great, I'm sure he was thinking about how funny it is looking at like 300 white people singing fuck police brutality. Decent set. First time I've seen this band in a decade.

War on Women - Female fronted punk rock. A good set. I hadn't heard of them before but enjoyed the set and message thoroughly.

Valiant Thor - Had a real good set. I don't know many of their songs, but the whole set was very good. Head banging rock and roll. It was exactly what you wanted it to be.

Hatebreed - They were pretty poop. I'm pretty sure they didn't play anything off of Satisfaction is the Death of Desire, which was to be expected. I felt like they kind of mailed it in. There wasn't much of a pit or anything to speak of.

The Ataris - They were good. Exactly what you would expect. Average songs that are good enough to watch. They've been playing forever and they played pretty much spot on compared to the albums.

Alestorm - Played a ton of good songs. Killed it pretty much. I always want them to play more. One of the top bands of the day.

The Adolescents - They were good. The crowd was thoroughly uninspired, and that was unfortunate. Good energy from the old timers.

Candiria - I had assumed this band would play early somewhere but they didn't. It was a good set. Candiria doesn't have overly creative breakdowns and their songs are a bit choppy, so most of the Warped Tour crowd didn't give two shits. The singer is extremely good. I really like watching him and I really liked the set.

Big D and the Kids Table - Good easy going punk rock. I hadn't seen them before somehow, so this was enjoyable. Sick of It All - They played a good set. Instead of playing Clobbering Time and Potential for a Fall and America, they played District and Take the Night Off. Again, of course because of the audience. They always play good though and were solid.

Municipal Waste - Thrash metal goodness. They played a bunch of good songs and it was party time. Not especially energetic but very good nonetheless. This is how we turn your boring party into art!

GWAR - The best band of the day by far. They pretty much destroyed it even though Oderus Urungus is dead. I got sprayed with a ton of fake blood and they shredded for like 40 minutes. Every bit as amazing and outer space monstery as I had hoped it would be.

Best bands:
-Valiant Thor
-Alestorm
-GWAR

Bands I wanted to see but didn't:
Street Dogs
Knocked Loose

Not bad.

6-24 Bernie Sanders, Pittsburgh @Convention Center

This was the pregame party before Tobacco. Haha, kinda. So this was evidently a Move On.org event, and Bernie was the main speaker. I liked a few things and very much didn't like a few things. This one dude who spoke intermittently and was an organizer or something kept getting on stage and starting cheers and chants and shit. Mostly about Senator Toomey, who is a dickhead. Some of these cheers were god awful. Seriously reprehensible in their lack of flow. The other speakers were varying levels of interesting and captivating. Most of them were very short and spoke about how the repeal health care bill is bullshit and crippling. Bernie kinda killed it, kinda didn't. He was talking about a single topic, so there's really only so much to say. I liked his New York Jew accent. Love Bernie.

I'm thinking that we were one of the only groups that tailgated this. They should seriously serve beer at these events.

6-24 Tobacco's Al Dente Perfecto #2 Beach Party, High Tides, Zackey Force Funk, Demon Queen, Pittsburgh @Spirit

When we got there the party was already well underway. I think the act on when we walked in was Demon Queen. Not sure but we got some drinks and went out back to chill for a while.

High Tides - Not sure.

Demon Queen - My brother saw a lot more than we did and thought it was pretty good. Some DJ with rap style vocals I think. All I could hear was the beat.

Zackey Force Funk - At first when this dude took the stage Tobacco was DJing for him. Evidently they had released an album like a decade ago. They played all those songs. They said they'll likely never do that again, so that was cool. Zackey funk force then took over. Zackey has good beats and grooves and we were varying degrees of drunk so we enjoyed it. His vocals though. He sounds like a 20 some year old girl, in a way. It was good somehow.

I wouldn't say it had an overly beach party feel, but it was cool anyway. I'm hype that during Skull Fest Tobacco is playing a set at Spirit downstairs while the Doom show is going on upstairs. I'm sure this is going to be a great time.

Hi's - Good pizza, good tunes, good place and everything.

Low's - What's going on in that bus?!

5-22 Radiation Risks, Eel, SLIP, Pittsburgh @Camp Clarke Polish Hill

I've been sleeping on writing this review for some reason. Camp Clarke was a sweet spot for a punk show. A beat down garage at the end of a beat down dead end street in a beat down little neighborhood. The sound wasn't great by any means, but everything else was pretty sweet.

SLIP - I'm pretty sure this is a new band from the local area. Fast punk, they were good.

Eel - This band has played many times over the years. Very fast, fuzzy, noisy, punk. Good band, good energy.

Radiation Risks - The disappointment of the year so far. Since the last time this band played Gooskis I think, they have added sax player. I think what they do is have the sax play the tunes that the lead guitar player would generally play. It isn't working for them. They were twice as good last time we saw them. Still a banger of a show, but this band disappointed us.

Hi's - The location

low's - The transformation of Radiation Risks

4-11 Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Masked Intruder, Pears, Pittsburgh @Rex Theater

I've never been a huge fan of Me First. I like them and all, but nothing was ever all that appealing to me. After seeing them live I like them a lot better. This was only their second time coming to Pittsburgh according to them, which was surprising. The first time they played at PNC Park and got booed out of the stadium. They canceled their appearance for the following night based on the crowd reaction. They told the story about that, evidently they played the song which doubles as the Boston Red Sox fight song, and everyone booed unrelentingly. Great story for a punk cover band.

Pears - This band kinda sucked. I didn't particularly like the vocalist, even though he was the most entertaining thing about the band. Very average. I see a lot of Pears shirts around, and I don't know why. Maybe they're really good on cd or something.

Masked Intruder - This band has a lot of funny potential. They all wear masks, and their gig is that they break into houses. What sucks is that the vocals are of the high pitched emo variety. On one hand that's really funny, especially for their songs about peeping and inappropriate touching, but on the other hand I really wanted something more rugged from them to really drive home the masked intruder angle. For being Masked Intruders, the musical style is very vanilla. Still an ok band and a decent show.

Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies - They pretty much ruled. They only play cover songs and they do it well. All really old songs. I didn't know most of the songs, but it was a good time anyway. They dres uniform in pink shiny button up shirts and neckties and shit. A good show, very entertaining.

Hi's - Me First, just a great night for punk.

Low's - The opening bands.

4-5 UK Subs, Riots, Scene of Irony, No Time, Silence, Pittsburgh @Cattivo

It was pretty much a last minute call to go to this show. I'm glad we did though. We were a little late arriving, missed Silence. I can't believe the show started on time. It was a beautiful night outside. Great weather.

Silence - Missed them.

No Time - Great oi influenced hardcore band. A bit like Freedom. All of Adam's bands are good. Pittsburgh band.

Scene of Irony - This was a funny band. The lead singer was wearing a crazy suit. He was kinda awesome. A good frontman. Reminded me a little bit of Short Dark Strangers. The rest of the band left a lot to be desired. Nothing about them made a whole lot of sense to me. Average pace punk rock.

Riots - From Norway or Sweden. They kinda sucked, unfortunately. The music wasn't the worst ever, but I didn't really like any of the songs. Perfect time to go outside for a smoke. The vocalist was the worst part. We watched 4 songs and took a stroll.

UK Subs - These old fuckers rock the fuck out. They played all the hits and the new songs ruled too. It's crazy that they have been a band since the 1970's consistently and are still putting out new records. Love that shit. Punk rockers for life. Every song is pretty much a sing along.

Hi's - UK Subs, No Time, the weather.
Low's - not much