November 30th, 2002
All Bets Off and In Control
924 Gilman St. Berkeley. 8pm $5
Two of my friends had to work so we didn`t end up going to the show until about 10, arriving just in time for the two last bands to play.
Ok so now its time for me to rant on this show. My friend Shelly is helping me write this because as we drove home I think we both felt disappointment for the hxc scene. The following statments ring true for both bands we saw but the singer for Terror really angered us. He preached how unity was so important to the hxc scene and we need to keep it alive. He then proceeded to tell everyone how we need to exclude all the "rockstar assholes" and bands that claim to be hxc. On the way home Shelly and I were talking and it made us wonder how he said exclude the rockstar assholes, when he was acting like one himself with his elitist attuide. He said how the kids who came to the show tonight put the core in harcore and how important they are, and we need to stick together. Then he went on to tell everyone to get the pits going. This raised many questions. How can one preach total unity of a scene then continue to say lets kick the shit out of eachother? We agree with the whole "feel the music" thing but when you see about 10 people walk out the door, face filled with blood, thats when it becomes a sport to hurt people. Overall, this show was sort of a wake up call for us to see how fucked up things have become. When people concentrate more on hurting one another then the music, and the bands promoting such behavior, makes us sad. Maybe they should take up boxing and not going to hxc shows. Two guys got in a fight across the street from the club and kicked the shit our of eachother. Yeah promoting the unity, right?
oxoxxxoxo
All bets off:
All Bets Off was main support for this show. We couldn`t help but notice how much they taunted the crowd. They were a pretty basic hardcore band who just plain acted like assholes. At one point in the set someone in the crowd yelled something, I`m not sure if it was offensive or not, but the lead singer said "whoever said that, hold both your hands up" so the guy did and I`m assuming he was overweight because then the singer said, "I`m suprised theres no food in your hands" then he went on to say "yeah, I`m an asshole. Everyone say I`m an asshole." They just seemed more involved in pumping the crowd up with insults and being hxc then playing decent music. They had a metal feel to them, something that we didn`t find too appealing and from what we could gather they just sang and acted like a bunch of bully pricks. Their breakdowns were weak, brash, and short. So basically we didn`t enjoy them too much and were turned off by their stage presense. I will although say that they had good crowd participation. Something I would like more bands to produce, the singer passed the mic around letting fans sing and scream, which was nice. Another thing I found to be awesome was before they played their last song they said "this stage is your stage, climb on up." Its always good when bands aren`t assholes and let the fans get in on it too.
Terror:
Terror headlined this show. I must say my friends and I were left utterly unimpressed and downright pissed off. First let me tell you about their music. They were just a plain hardcore band nothing too special. Their set was extremly short, which I found amusing considering they were headlining the show. It was hard to concentrate on the music being as pissed off as we were, and also not getting your face kicked in. This was the second most crowded I have ever seen a show at Gilman be (D4 was very crowded as well) but I have never in my life seen more bloody people. They didn`t impress me musically and their stage presense was nothing compared to All Bets Off.
xJenx