A.R.A. Benefit Show on January 9, 1999 at the Praise Tabernacle church - Massapequa, LI
On Saturday January 9th, a benefit ska/punk show was held to support the recent birth of the Long Island chapter of the Anti-Racist Action group. About 300 people attended the rainy, 7 hour Saturday show. The show was tons of fun as bands from Long Island and New Jersey came out to show their support. The Drew Hermans, The Verdicts, Hatchback, 23 Skadoo, Channel 59, Lounge, One Cool Guy, Day 19, and Catch 22 rocked the roof off of the Praise Tabernacle church as everyone was dancing away!
Long Island's the Drew Hermans opened up the show with some catchy ska/punk. They managed to put an Op. Ivy cover into their set. Next up was the Long Island based The Verdicts. The Verdicts played a 25 minute set of their fast punk. Their music made quite an impression on the crowd as they came close to selling out of all their tapes! Hatchback took the stage next. They got the crowd into their set and music by using their good old sense of humor. They were pretty damn funny! Anyway, Hatchback played a half hour set playing upbeat ska/punk. They opened with a "hardcore" song which was pretty damn horrible..Though what do you expect from a ska band?
Good old 23 Skadoo took the stage after Hatchback. It seemed as if they were an extremely anticipated band of the day-long show because many people returned from smoking their ciggarettes outside just to see them. 23 Skadoo plays pretty good ska/punk in the vein of Less Than Jake. Definitely check them out. Now how could you dislike Long Island's own Channel 59?!? Channel graced the stage after 23 Skadoo and had majority of the crowd moving. They even had mad people come up on stage during one of their songs to dance and sing a long. Damn, what a fun band!!
The next band to play was the highly anticipated punk band from Orange County, N.Y. Lounge. This band is absolutely amazing! As soon as they broke into their first guitar riff, the crowd immediately opened a huge circle. People were running around, kicking, dancing, doing handstands...It was nuts! The crowd really got into their music. Lounge was definitely one of the highlights of the day. New Jersey's One Cool guy was up next. They opeened with a phat rap/ska song. Pretty damn original if you ask me..Anyway, they also had the crowd going nuts! Their ska/punk style just makes people wanna dance. Hey, I can't blame 'em. Pretty catchy music!
A last minute addition to bill was Day 19. This band is gonna be huge!! They've got that Less Than Jake/The Hippos style that makes you sing along and dance to every song. Wow, this is one band that you should check out immediately! If you don't, you'll be missing out on one of the best ska bands to come out of the scene in a while! Despite some technical problems(microphone), Day 19 put on an amazing set..
Thank god, the band that everyone in the church had been waiting for took the stage. As soon as you saw the members of Catch 22 setting up, you couldn't help but get excited! Damn...I know I was! The time in between Day 19 and Catch 22 was perhaps the longest 20 minutes of my life! I couldn't wait for Catch 22! What made this show even better was that this was Catch's first show ever on Long Island. So who knew what could happen? Catch 22 finally took the stage and opened with "Keasbie Nights". All I could say is WOW!! This band was amazing! They were funny too. The singer was wearing a bunny hat and the sax player had on a white cape which they found in a closet of the church. This completely reminded me of The Aquabats. Catch 22 rolled through songs such as "9mm and a Three Piece Suit", "Walking Away", "Sick and Sad"...the list goes on forever! The mic got into the crowd a number of times where everyone jumped upon and started to sing along. Members of the audience also got on stage and danced and sang along. I just didn't want this band to stop. Though, they did..
Thank you to everyone who came to the show, bought A.R.A. merchandise, gave donations, bought water and pizza, danced, and most importantly had fun. I'd like to thank The Drew Hermans, The Verdicts, Hatchback, 23 Skadoo, Channel 59, Lounge, One Cool Guy, Day 19, and Catch 22 for putting on amazing sets and helping us out.Oh, and thanks to everyone for not fucking up the church..We want to have more shows there. The Long Island A.R.A. was able to raise $1,000 dollars which we will use to buy merchandise (which we will sell to you for low low prices) and make a zine. We're working on getting Spring Heeled Jack and Less Than Jake for a show. Keep your eyes peeled to this site for more show info!
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