Fuck intros.

More Material took the stage and tore shit up with shrieking guitars and grinding drum hooks, rounded off with crazy bass lines and shit kicking keyboards. They played almost every song off of their 5 song demo, plus some un-recorded tracks. All in all, their blend of noise/psychedelic/rock mixed with an intense stage presence made them a great opener.

Next was Dry Socket, who took waaaay too long to set up their equipment, which included auxiliary percussion by the way of floor tom and timbale for the keyboardist to pound on when he wasn't sucking it up on the keyboards. Slipknot anyone? Anyway, they were metalcore, and the drummer and guitar player were talented as fuck, but the music was boring and the keyboardist obviously couldn't keep rhythm on that completely unnecessary auxiliary percussion. It didn't help either that a friend of the band went around on the floor to the twenty or so people there screaming, "Come on, mosh!" while she shoved people around. Boo-urns. Whiiiiiich brings us to icollide.

Wow. I've never seen anyone try to rip off Cedric's (ATDI, TMV) style more than the lead singer of icollide. He had the half-fro, the tight pants, the shoes, the tall, slender body, and, apparently, thought he had the dance moves. I spent 30 minutes listening to extremely technical music (that had potential, somewhat along the lines of a mix between At The Drive-In and Dillinger Escape Plan) while watching this doofus dance and clap off rhythm. Not to mention you couldn't hear his screams half the time because he was too busy pretending to dance to hold the microphone to his mouth. What a waste of excellent musicians.

Finally, Akimbo destroyed the Triple Rock Social Club with their explosive hardcore/punk. Anyone who knows me knows I have a gigantic boner for this band, and seeing them live just made the crotch of my pants get even tighter. What is amazing about this band isn't just how technical and solid they are, but how crazy they get while hitting every note right on. For those of you familiar with this band, you would know that they are now a four piece, although their regular guitar player isn't able to tour very much. The added guitar player recently left, and was replaced by an even newer guy. So out on tour is the newest guitar player, and they play as a trio. The style of the songs is slightly different, due to the different guitar player, but that didn't stop them from rocking two bass cabs and two guitar stacks. They played "Harpoon," "Golem," "Deliliah," and "Bane of the Ancient Whales" off of Elephantine, but the other half of their set was made up of new songs off of their upcoming release on Seventh Rule. Akimbo is currently destroying the Mid-West, and all of their tour dates can be seen here. Go see them and be baptized in audio fire.