With Soundwave over of another year and withdrawals setting in, there was only one thing to do. Go and see more punk rock shows. And as fortune had it, Mike Herrera's MxPx were in town for a quick tour to help overcome the withdrawals. Opening band Seek The Silence were a good starting point for the evening with a hi octane set. The five piece utilise the two vocalists well and had some pretty catchy tunes. At time stepping into pop punk boundaries through to melodic punk rock, they definitely got the blood pumping and the heads bobbing along with the riffs.
Three piece Nerdlinger were up next and kicked into second gear. Good stage presence and on stage banter mixed with some cracking punk rock songs in the vein of No Use For A Name and Bodyjar. They even threw in a tribute to the late Tony Sly with a cover of "Justified Black Eye". A friend of mine in the crowd told me to write that they were shit (jokingly of course) but they were far from shit, they were really good. Equally as good and entertaining were Batfoot. The four piece's no nonsense short fast punk rock jabs were broken up with banter with the crowd and the customary Curly Wurly's being thrown out to the crowd. (They also have a love song dedicated to the candy bar "Give Me Back My Curly Wurly"). They have the same brattish humour and delivery a la Guttermouth or Diesel Boy. They managed to kick out some twenty odd songs in forty minutes and rev the crowd up for the headliners, MxPx.
This tour the band is back in Allstar mode with Tom and Yuri unable to tour these days. Filled out to a four piece, I admit, they sounded better then ever. The inclusion of friends to play the songs with Mike helps reinvigorate the songs and give them slightly different texture. They ran through a crowd favourite set across most of the bands albums with songs like "My Last Story", "Lucky Guy", "Responsibility" and encore tracks "Chick Magnet" and "Punk Rock Show" getting the crowd to start up circle pits, crowd surf and sing along. Mid way through Mike did a short acoustic set which gave the crowd an opportunity to yell out songs they wanted to hear. We got a rendition of "Summer Of 69", "GSF" and a song from Mike's country band Tumbledown with "Dead Man Walking".
It was an awesome set and a great vibe in the room. The band played with enthusiasm and energy that many younger bands could learn a lot from, but more importantly, it was just a good old fashioned fun punk rock show. The perfect antidote to those post Soundwave blues.
