So this was the big day, a chance to see the infamous transplants live. Rancid, being one of my favorite bands of all time, I was very excited to hear what tim's new project was gonna sound like.
The show started at eight, and so me and my buddy david got there by 7:00.
As we were waiting in line talking to one of the local punks there, I saw my idol(well, not an idol, but you know) Matt Freeman. Having not enough courage to talk to him and say "what's up", instead I continue to wait in line not wanting to risk walking past the security guards. We also saw travis, but nobody really had any interest except for the two groupies in front of us trying to get his attention, it was funny.
Finally the doors open at 8:00. When we first got in, the surroundings had a very HOB(house of blues) type of vibe to it, the stage had curtains, very nice full bar, and small as hell. When you go to shows, most of you are probrably used to this procrastination when waiting for bands to play. And so, we waited yet again for about another hour, and when I was finally gonna lose my patience, the first band was about to start.
At 9:00 the first band came up, Pressure point. Now this was one of the bands that I have never of, but have heared good things about. This was one of your skinhead anti-racist type of band, and they were awesome! Probrably one of the most energetic acts of the night, thier set really impressed me, so much that I bought one of their 7" records. The main high point of that set was when they played a cover song from Agnostic front called "Power", and what was more cool was when Toby Morses from H2O came out to sing the song with them, that was rad.
After the well played set from Pressure point, I knew it was gonna get better. Next up was Transplants. When the curtain rose, everybody was all hyped up with the presence of tim and matt on stage. To my surprise there were 5 members. Tim on guitar, matt on bass, travis on drums, craig(from the forgotten) on guitar, and another person on vocals in which whom I've never seen before. When listening to the songs, I was so amazed of matt's bass lines, there was one tune when he was just going crazy with his bass solo for like 30 to 40 seconds, incredible. I think it was some of his best work I heard so far. Not so much hip-hop or techno vibe to the music at all, except for the way tim was singing at some parts of the songs, if you consider that rapping. None the less, it was an energetic and solid performance. I was slamming so much, I almost over did myself, and could of fainted. One cool part of that set was when Lars from rancid came out unsuspectingly, to give a small praise to the Transplants. After hearing those songs, I couldn't really say it was punk or it was hip-hop, but definitely there were many influences in the music that they made was very original. Can't wait for the release in October.
So far I have seen some pretty good performances that night, and so now it was time for the closing act, the distillers. The distillers are a band that I have heard a few songs from, but not too much familiar with them still. After seeing the transplants, I guess I was suspecting a little more of them since they were the closing band, I was wrong. Their set was totally boring and so I didn't think they were a real good live band. The chicks seem to like them, but I found myself yawning through their set. It's sucks that I've heard so many good things from the distillers, but their performance didn't seem to convince me at all. One funny part was when she stop the set for a minute because she needed to go pee, hmmmâ¦.girls. All in all, it was a pretty good show.