Voodoo Glow Skulls / Ten Foot Pole / Digger / River City Rebels

After spending nearly an entire summer up in New York City I was extremely disappointed having only seen one show and when I heard about the Victory Records tour hitting Long Island near where I worked, I was totally psyched. For some reason the show started at the ungodly hour of 5pm on a Monday night so I took off work early and hopped the train to Rockville Centre and walked around the Mayberry-like town for a few hours. It took me that long to find the venue because no one in town seemed to know where it was, which made sense once I found it because it is literally a hole in the wall, without a sign or anything, but the line of punk kids outside the door tipped me off. As I sized up the ‘competition’ I noticed that I was by far the oldest person there, with most of the people in line ranging from 12-17 in age, and I was weighing in at 21. The usual pre-show mischief was taking place as everyone was eagerly anticipating such huge bands coming to this small Long Island town.

This brings me to the lineup, which was a bit different than I initially thought it to be, as the night before at Krome this same tour had put on a full 8 bands, whereas tonight there would be four. The River City Rebels hail from Vermont and as I saw them unpack their instruments I noticed skateboards and sleeping bags falling out of their trailer, along with a saxophone; definitely your typical touring band. Next up was Digger, a melodic pop punk quartet from Pennsylvania who I had seen four years ago in Dallas, along with the next band. Ten Foot Pole, whose origins I don’t recall other than they used to be Scared Straight give or take a few members, play a hybrid skate/pop punk with a high pitched energetic vocalist driven by hard fast melodies. Closing the show were carnival/punk/skate/everythingelse rock legends the Voodoo Glowskulls who came all the way from Riverside, CA to rock the island with their insane stage-feats and showmanship. To say the least, I was ready to rock out.

Expecting a late start time, I walked into the venue at about 5:30 to see the Rebels taking the stage. Having never heard of them, I asked a few local kids what the deal was and the only response I could get out of them was ‘DUDE.. THE REBELS LIKE.. ROCK!’ Ah well, I’d have to see for myself. From the way they were dressed, I was expecting your typical east coast punk band, tight black jeans, metal hanging from their belts, and suspenders. Given this initial impression, I was definitely surprised, as well as a little let down when I saw a trombone and saxophone being broken out, and I expected a weak ska band ala Mustard Plug that would only lead to tons of skanking in the pit. I moved into the middle of the crowd, still toting my 20-lb backpack that contained all of my work clothes and laptop, and awaited the dimming of the lights. It was here when I first noticed the layout of the stage, it was basically just a floor with a small stage that the drums stood on, the mic stands were setup 5 feet out and the band took their positions on the floor. Being my first floor show I was intrigued as to how the crowd would interact with the band, and the Rebels answered my questions right away as the lead singer let out a growl/scream and leapt towards the crowd. A timid ska band they were not. I proceeded to dance the hardest I’ve ever moved for a band whose songs I didn’t know (check out their album here). The relative inexperience usually involved with the opening band was lost and we were treated to a thirty minute set of straight hard fast punkrock with horn backings. Between the horn players running all the way out into the pit, the lead singer grabbing crowds of kids to sing along with him, and the guitar/bass players jumping everywhere, this band really got the crowd worked up. I can’t recall one song where the entire crowd wasn’t knocking people down and running around in a huge circle pit, to sum it up in one word, amazing. The only complaint I have was that their set seemed like it should have been longer, the crowd was totally into it and really didn’t look ready to stop. Part of this may have been that the Rebels had evidently played the area once before with local bands High School Football Heroes, whom they gave a lot of shout-outs and dedications to, but either way, this was what a punkrock show should be like.

The lights turned on and there was a short intermission while the crowd waited for Digger to take the stage. Let me take a quick moment to interject my experience with Digger. As I stated earlier, I saw them with Ten Foot Pole and Diesel Boy a few years back and they played as hard as they could to a totally ruthless crowd, which impressed me enough to buy their new album at the time, Promise of an Uncertain Future. I fell in love with the extensive use of backup vocals and great guitar work and have looked forward to seeing the band ever since then. Fast forward to the present, and the Digger I remembered was no longer here. Maybe I just have a very cloudy memory but I recall a three piece band with totally different faces, and I checked my video for "Space Cadet" on this when I got home; I didn’t recognize a single one of them. This aside, I was wondering how the crowd that seemed to love the street-punk sound of the last band would react, and my skepticism turned out correct. Digger busted into a hard-rocking melody and the entire crowd just stood there, sans me nodding my head and three girls up front ‘dancing.’ They played three songs I didn’t recognize (I only have the aforementioned album) and after that played "Pieces", which seemed to pick the crowd up a bit but not to the extent it should have. They really were just getting no love, and it showed in their performance. They lost almost all of their fuel and seemed hesitant to sing their hearts out or leap around, and by the end of their set I could tell they were totally disappointed. This was their last show on the tour and it definitely wouldn’t be their best. It seemed Digger was limited to 30 minutes as well (they were really cranking these bands through fast) and their last three songs, although harder, really seemed to fall on deaf ears. Personally I enjoyed their playing immensely, but it seemed no one else but the three girls up front did, judging by the comments afterwards that I overheard that basically ranged from ‘They sucked’ to ‘I’d rather see dashboard than these guys.’ The two things that I feel really put a damper on the crowd’s acceptance, the first of which being the setup of the venue: a floor venue doesn’t cater well to bands with large vocal ranges because the guitar/bass amps are right in your face and the vocals seem to get drowned out. The other problem was that this just wasn’t their crowd, the kids were really expecting to be pushed hard and fast and Digger just doesn’t provide that. Ah well, they still put on a good show, even if it wasn’t fully appreciated.

Ten Foot Pole began setting up and the first thing I noticed was that there were only three mics, meaning that the previous quintet that I was expecting had merged into a foursome, with the lead singer taking over backup guitar. I was fairly upset by this because I thought the lead singer’s performance in the past were what made their set enjoyable and made up for the similar sounding songs. Unfortunately it looked like tonight he would be on an ax so it would be a totally different experience. The other issue I had with their setup was that they put the mics on the floor right at the edge of the stage, so all three guitarists were crammed together on the tiny stage with the drummer, which really dampened their effectiveness in motivating the crowd overall. The band was initially met by a much larger response from the kids upon beginning their first song than Digger, but something didn’t seem right, people stopped dancing about halfway into the tune and just seemed to stare at the lead singer, who couldn’t figure out what was going on. Evidently someone on the mixing board was either asleep, or didn’t realize how the speakers were setup at the club because the vocals were all totally inaudible and seemed softer than a whisper. The two main ‘house speakers’ faced outwards at 45 degree angles from the stage and were hung near the back, so their output missed about ½ of the crowd that was sitting in front of the stage. About 5-6 songs in, the problem was fixed by turning up the monitor but I must say the first few songs just didn’t feel the same without the lead singer’s voice standing out over the guitars. Once the vocalists could be heard however, the crowd rocked out hard, and the closing tracks, "A.D.D." and "Getaway" had the entire venue moving. Overall, had they moved out on the floor and had more crowd interaction, as well as fixed the speaker problem earlier, the set would have been much more enjoyable.

It seemed that almost immediately after Ten Foot Pole left the stage, the entire crowd surged forward and pushed right up to where the Glow Skulls had just began setting up, and the tension/anticipation merged together to produce a very high-strung environment, with people jockeying for position, even in this small of a venue. I had never seen the band before and had very high expectations, but nothing would prepare me for the show I was about to see. The band started playing at about 8:20, after about ten minutes of mic checks as they didn’t seem to be working, and when the mask-wearing lead singer screamed ‘WHATS UP LONG ISLAND?’ at the top of his lungs, the floor shook with the crowd’s response. This set the theme for their set, hard, fast, loud, crazy with the entire crowd, even the tube top wearing girls, getting into the pit. The band opened up with a string of older songs from Firme and Band Geek Mafia, jumping up and down and running into the crowd and back. The horn players didn’t seem into it as much as the guitarist, who periodically ran up to the front row of people and crosschecked them with his guitar, while the bassist jumped up and down with the crowd. The lead singer, however, truly kept the crowd going, and would surge forward until he was totally surrounded with people belting out the words, then push them all off, causing chaos in the crowd and leading to even more kids knocking each other over and all in all going crazy. I was really surprised at the lead singer’s use of multiple microphones, which I’m not sure whether he did due to half of the mics not working or by choice, but it really made for an interesting environment because he would throw different mics towards the crowd for them to sing into or lean a mic stand towards some of the people in the front during parts of the choruses. As they made their way halfway through the set, the band played "Delinquent Song" which definitely had the biggest reaction to that point, and resulted in a lot of crowd surfing and subsequently boots in the head, an essential piece in the punkrock puzzle. After this song one would think that they would slow it down and give the crowd a chance to rest, but they chose to do the opposite, playing the classic cover "Charlie Brown" and unveiling the flaming skull torch, a signature of theirs, for their most famous song, "El Coo Cooi". Maybe it was just the sheer energy involved in seeing them live, but their songs seemed about three times as long as the recorded version, and I could swear they looped through each a couple of times, providing for a much needed extension to the 2 minutes that their songs average. Unfortunately, they must not have realized how serious the venue was about meeting their 9pm deadline, and after a 40 minute set the Glowskulls informed us that they could only play one more song, with the lead singer explaining "Ihope you guys go home happy knowing that you paid for half a set, this is bullshit." They closed with "Land of the Misfit Toys" and the crowd, whether due to aggression towards the venue for closing early, or just disappointment that the show was ending, decided it was time to put forth one final surge and get all of the energy out of their systems, which led to the entire venue turning into a circle pit, arms and legs flailing and skulls thrashing.

Overall it was an amazing show, cut short by capitalism as usual. It was explained to me afterwards that the reason the show was ended early is due to the weekly "Monday jazz night" which in a town like this most likely brings in twenty people max, but its twenty people over 21 who will buy drinks so more money for the venue I guess. This tour is only beginning and still has a good 20 stops left so I definitely would recommend checking it out, if anything to see the onstage antics of the Rebels and the Glowskulls.

(all music clips copyright cdnow.com, unfortunately they wouldnt let me link directly)