the Briggs

7 Seconds / Alkaline Trio / the Briggs: live in Chicagolive in Chicago (2005)
Side One Dummy Records

Reviewer Rating: 4

Contributed by: jamespastepunkjamespastepunk
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on March 25th 2005The argument has been leveled against Kevin Seconds and his band of merry men is that 7 Seconds should hang it up. These people would argue that the heyday of 7 Seconds1 is over and that Mr. Seconds and Co. should pass the proverbial torch, and gracefully bow out of the hardcore scene. Their perform.

The argument has been leveled against Kevin Seconds and his band of merry men is that 7 Seconds should hang it up. These people would argue that the heyday of 7 Seconds¹ is over and that Mr. Seconds and Co. should pass the proverbial torch, and gracefully bow out of the hardcore scene. Their performance at the Metro with Voice In The Wire and labelmates the Briggs blasts those fuckers out of the water.

The first performance of the night was Voice In The Wire, a group on New Jersey's Eyeball Records who started the growing crowd off with a meaty slab of enjoyable punk. No prefixes or suffixes needed; it was simply entertaining and fun. The vocals of singer Zach Furnace remained clear and gruff, no matter the subject, ranging from his city Pittsburgh to working class pride - "this one is dedicated to everyone who hates their jobs" - and played off well against the solid drumming and guitar work.

Next up, the Briggs raised my eyebrows. Their live set was good, energetic, and commendable, but street punk and Oi! is a terribly restrictive genre, and there's a fine line between wearing your influences on your sleeves and ripping off someone else's work. So, if you've heard the Casualties, you've heard the Briggs; if you've heard the Unseen, you've heard the Briggs, etc. True, they have a nautical theme, and their live show is infectiously good. If you're into street punk, the Briggs should scamper the rigging to the top of your list. If not, they're worth sitting through.

I say this as an Alkaline Trio fan: their surprise acoustic performance was pretty terrible. Singer Matt Skiba missed an entire verse for one song and some words here and there, including their Pegboy cover. Dan's mic was up too high so he had trouble singing, and the only person who didn't have trouble was Derek on guitar. True, Matt's admittance that he had seen 7 Seconds at the Metro 15 years ago was endearing, but no amount of honesty could salvage that set. To Matt's credit though, he admitted that the set was "thrown together really quickly." Dissapointing.²
Set list:

Goodbye Forever (opener)
Emma
All On Black
Mercy Me (new)
Deathbed (new)
Demons Away (new)
Sadie
Blue in the Face
Sorry About That
Field Of Darkness (Pegboy)

Posi legends 7 Seconds came and tore the place apart, back to front, side to side. It might have been the group's 25th year, but you couldn't tell it from their energy. None of the group seemed like they were on their last limbs, clutching at straws; it was, in fact, quite the opposite, with singer Kevin accenting the cymbal crashes at the end of songs with jumps on stage and Troy Mowat hitting the drums as though he had a blood vendetta against them.

Kevin took some time out to talk about "how hardcore changes every week" and how grateful the group is that people still come out after the group's last Chicago show five years ago. Steve Youth railed away on his bass, playing with the speed and skill of people half his age, though his last name is quickly becoming a bit of a misnomer³. Speedy, old-school hardcore was the order of the night, and 7 Seconds proved they can still serve it up better than just about everyone else.

At the end of the show a small fight broke out, which Kevin hoped "didn't happen anymore…we're uber-sensitive about it," as well as defending Matt Skiba from the heckling punx in the pit.

Their set list included, but was not limited to (I did not catch their opener, and missed a couple other songs, so if you do know the songs played, please help me):

Here We Go Again Kids
Trust
Red And Black
Regress No Way
Walk Together, Rock Together (fake closer)
99 Red Balloons (real closer)
One Big Guessing Game
If The Kids Are United
You Lose
Committed For Life
Sooner Or Later
Not Just Boys Fun
Here's Your Warning
Slow Down A Second
Sooner Or Later
Your Parents' Hardcore
One Friend Too Many
Panic Attack
The Crew
Young Till I Die

Oddities:

A couple of Kevin's teeth were knocked out in Baltimore soon after he had spent "a lot of money" fixing them.
According to Brendan, the Lawrence Arms B-sides CD is coming out in June.

1 - 1980-1987
2 - Don't shoot, I'm unarmed.
3 - idea ripped from pastepunk.com

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

jamespastepunk (March 31, 2005)

In other words, its like my Pre-Calc class, except with better taste in music.

BrandonSideleau (March 31, 2005)

Shit......there's more gossiping and bitching on here than in a high school cheerleading squad. Hilarious!

Anonymous (March 29, 2005)

fuck matt sikba and his eyeliner

adamfromohio (March 28, 2005)

Anonymous (March 28, 2005)

contrary to almost all beliefs on alk3

good mourning > from here to infirmary crimson

Anonymous (March 26, 2005)

Saw the Murphys last night in NYC. They played Tessie with video footage. FUCK THEM! I will never see them live again. They drained all the energy from the room with that lame stunt.

Anonymous (March 26, 2005)

The Briggs are a fucking awesome band. Matt Skiba's solo stuff is weak, just listen to his split with Kevin.

Joe

TheOneTrueBill (March 26, 2005)

Hey man, I exposed you to a brand new audience with that paper I wrote about you! Whole new audience!

Anonymous (March 26, 2005)

The new ALK3 is the best album that the trio has ever recorded.

maverick (March 25, 2005)

"Ha, I was going to do one too, but I had a paper to finish after the show was over. School comes over PN.org I'm sorry to say"

SELLOUT.

-Scott

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

nice fucking footnotes, idiot.

TheOneTrueBill (March 25, 2005)

"haha, nice website link/review. I expected this to be Bill's review, though."

Ha, I was going to do one too, but I had a paper to finish after the show was over. School comes over PN.org I'm sorry to say

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

the briggs don't sound like the casualties or the unseen. you're quite wrong.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

"crimson is nowhere near from here to infirmary"

well infirmary sucks, real bad, and crimson does not

jamespastepunk (March 25, 2005)

Here I was figuring you guys would change the link name when you were posting it. Oh well.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

that set list from a3 is pretty weak. pretty weak indeed.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

TRUST is the best punk love song ever written

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

primeevil7, I hate you.

jumpstartrecords (March 25, 2005)

zack's last name is Furness, not Furnace. oh yeah, and he rules.

sickboi (March 25, 2005)

I was gonna do a review for the Richmond show, but I just couldn't do them justice, AMAZING show, and I luckily filmed it.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

i, for one, am feelin' the footnotes.

gladimnotemo (March 25, 2005)

The Briggs really don't sound like the Casualties or the Unseen...they have more of an Oi! influence, while the other two are definately street punk, or punkcore, or whatever you want to call it.

And Troy Mowat is just ridiculous on drums.

Big_Guy (March 25, 2005)

VITW is awesome but whenever I've seen them it seems like I'm the only one into them.

threechordsandthetruth (March 25, 2005)

haha, nice website link/review. I expected this to be Bill's review, though.

kirbypuckett (March 25, 2005)

Wow.

That show sounds AMAZING!

Very nice for VITW too!

- Kirby

TheOneTrueBill (March 25, 2005)

Voice in the Wire were fun. Very fun.

The Briggs were great, their fans were not. I was so happy when the security guy jumped onto those fuckers that were fighting.

I'm not an Alkaline Trio fan in the least. Therefore, that was a waste of 30 minutes of my time.

This is all I need to say about 7 Seconds; my head, while it didn't physicaly explode, sure was at it's limits. Such an amazing set, I honestly can't put it into words.

Crookedsuperhero (March 25, 2005)

See what you started Adam.

I still love you though.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

footnotes dont equal funny

swingline (March 25, 2005)

crimson is nowhere near from here to infirmary

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

Yeah seriously, footnotes are fucking annoying already. However, on the positive side, I must say the new alkaline trio kicks ass, better than Infirmary and Good Mourning.

joeg (March 25, 2005)

score is for 7 seconds

joeg (March 25, 2005)

score is for the footnotes.

Anonymous (March 25, 2005)

So wait, Brenden works at the Metro?

maverick (March 25, 2005)

STOP WITH THE FUCKING FOOTNOTES ALREADY.

Jesus christ, you people are beating a once-unique idea to a very painful death. Enough.

Also, 7 Seconds brought it hard last week in Cleveland. Voice In The Wire were good as well, but the crowd could care less about them (it was the crowd's loss).

-Scott