Plea For Peace / Take Action Tour 2002

I had high hopes going into this show, immensly high hopes, but unfortuantely for me and the rest of the Seattle crowd, T(I)NC was forced to cancel due to the injury of their drummer, and it definitely showed during the concert. I was really surprised by the turnout for the show, or put better, the lack of turnout. When I arrived at the Showbox for Reel Big Fish a couple of weeks ago, the line to get in stretched clear around the block. For this show, the line barely went halfway down the block. So, minus one band, I still went in expecting to see a great show, and for the most part, I was rewarded.

The Lawrence Arms was first, and because there was a 21 show after the plea for peace that night, they had to start early, so their wasn't too much of a crowd for them. The pit was non-existent, save for a few people bobbling their heads up and down. Yet, the Lawrence Arms still put on a great show. I haven't really listened to too much of their stuff, save for random Fat Wreck/Floyd compliations, but I was still impressed.

So after a short thirty minute set, Common Rider hopped on the stage, and the crowd definitely got into them. The pit was still small, but relative to the crowd size, it was still a good time. Common Rider played a very good set, even though I still didn't recognize some of their songs.

Common Rider also played a short sense, in part due to that damn 21 DJ spinning party looming afterwards. The Promise Ring hopped on the stage next, and well, put simply, I am not a fan of the type of music they play. But thats just me, plenty of people seemed to be enjoying The Promise Ring's sound enough. I really didn't have much of a opinion of them, until the lead singer had "a moment of realization" in between songs. He recalled in a previous interview how someone had said that he sounds like Kermit the Frog. The lead singer proceeded to ask the lights guy to turn on a green light, and then he commented on how he really does look like and sound like Kermit the Frog. He laughed, the emo kids stopped their crying and laughed, I went to the bathroom and vomited. However, other than that, I didn't think that The Promise Ring was bad at all, I just don't like them.

After The Promise Ring, the people from 1-800-SUICIDE came out and talked about suicide prevention. Then three girls from the local crisis center came out and asked for signatures for their petition to increase federal funding for suicide prevention, a very good cause might I add.

They left, and Poison the Well came on to the stage, and did sound checks for a considerable amount of time (and this wasn't a sound check guy, it was the band doing this). They fine tuned their instruments for some time, and then they blew into their first song. One that I couldn't recognize, one that most of the crowd didn't recognize, and it showed. However, next up, they tore into Lazarro and the few remaining people left in the venue went berserk. Poison the Well tore threw their set with insane fury, all the while mentioning how the tour was for such a good cause. After around an hour, they left, with no encore, cause of that damn 21 show.

Overall, all of the bands played quite well, and the wide diversity of the bands their was a nice plus. However, at the same time, it took away from the show, because people going to see the Promise Ring had to mix and mingle with people going to see Poison the Well. People going to see Poison the Well (like me) didn't get the hardcore only show experience that is so fun. And people going to see T(I)NC, well, they just were left with nothing.