July 2nd '98 in Hood River Oregon
TRIAL
POWERHOUSE
SLOPPY DENGLISH
DEAD KID SCHMELLO
Yes!! someone finally reviewed a show and sent it to me!!! Here's a rad, heartfelt review from an Oregonian named Blake who went to see the second show of Trial's summer tour...
Okay, I've seen Trial once before in PDX, Stage 4. It was my first time to experience the fullfilling energy Trial gives. So my first time seeing them was a blast, I had never
owned thier albums and as I stood on the side watching these kids go nuts and singing thier brains out, just made want jump up and down with glee. But my main focus here is tonight....The show started at 8 or so and (what I heard
is that) apparently before I had arrived the manager of the stage room wanted to cancel off the show and told everyone to leave. So kids left, some stayed and some were arriving. But the show went on. Dead Kid Schmello played
first, thier sort of AFI type hard punk. They played well, but I wasn't pleased with what they do with the crowd, they seemed to expect everyone to love them and get into it, even if their saying to you "hood river sucks"
"this is the shittiest gig" blah blah. But they play good music. Then Sloppy D played. Good skate punk. Then right before Powerhouse played a lady came and told powerhouse to tell everyone that 'moshing' wasn't allowed,
so Powerhouse made the comment of "Okay guys no moshing, you can slam dance and stage dive, but no moshing" but what are kids gonna do when some lady comes up and tells them not to do something? Thier gonna do it
more. soo anyways Powerhouse kicked booty, good energy, G style hardcore with attitude.
Then came Trial. I was so excited to hear them after listening to thier stuff for a couple months. Trial just blows me away live. Greg, the
lead singer, talks to the crowd and gets everyone into what Trial is as a band and what his songs are trying to get across. I couldn't imagine comparing his intelligence
to anyone, it's beyond belief. The man's mind works
like a masterpiece. So during the show the lead singer of sloppy D, Brad, says out loud "sorry shit got fucked up today" and Greg asked him to explain and Brad told him about the manager telling everyone to leave and
whatnot and then Greg started talking to
the group of kids about how MTV and the media gives the idea of 'moshing' as a new trend to hurt people and to fight and punch, but really it's a way to express your deepest feelings of
energy and show your pride for hardcore and what it means to you. And after Greg talked to the crowd of about 20 kids, who
were listening in absolute silence, they played on and dedicated a song to rising above these rules
that were put upon us that night. And as I drove home after the show I realized how good it felt to be a part of something so special to so many kids and people around the world, music, and for those people and bands like Trial who
make it happen. In all I'd have to say Trial is one of my favorite live bands and if you ever get the chance to see them, I think it's worth the few bucks. -blake
blake lawrence
Cabalerete@aol.com
may 17th, 1998, at rckndy
Avail
Harkonen
Kiss It Goodbye
Keener
At about 7 o'clock the doors opened to the RCKNDY and I was a little bit worried. There was hardly anyone there. It was after all, I
reasoned, a Sunday night. Still, my friend Bridgette and I had thought that there would be this long line so we showed up at six.... most people showed up at eight and in the end there was really a pretty good turnout. I mostly came
to the show to see Harkonen. They played really well, I think that they are getting better with each show. Aaron mentioned a record coming out in the next month on Excursion, so you should pick that up when it becomes
available. If you've never seen them... well I'm not great at describing sounds of bands... it's intense, they sound less like "baby botch" than they used to, but still have that complicated style going on. Once in
awhile the song will get slow and artsy with talking pieces but then it'll break out into craziness again. I don't know, what can I say, they're good, go see em. I had also never seen Avail before, but what I had been hearing about them was true. They've got a
great upbeat punk sound and they have fun on stage... even a guy in the band who only dances!! The crowd enjoyed themselves I saw a lot of smiling and singing along. They played their longest set ever; 20 songs.
I'm no Avail expert obviously, so that's about all I can tell ya but it was a great show. I left right after the show... damn having school in the morning.... but I wrote this review in 2nd period anyway.... thanx bye
I had never heard of Keener before, and whenthey struck the first chord promptly at 8 (for once) we went in to check them out. I only actually watched a few songs. Theyhad a pop
punk style that I'm just not really into. They had some good melodies but the songs weren't all that tight... I have no idea how long they've been around or where they're from....
This was my first time seeing Kiss It
Goodbye. The only thing that really stood out for me was when the vocalist mentioned that, for him, metal was like a person who has a crush on you and follows you around but you don't like them. Anyway they played a
good set. It's not really a style that I personally like much, but I was tappin my foot.
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