FOLIO
by Ora ‘Tre’ Brasel
It’s good to know that certain bands don’t fade into a pale existence over time, and Strung Out most certainly hasn’t. The last time I got to check these guys out it was 1995, and at the time they were just starting to make waves on the music scene for their heavy hitting punk rock. Now they have grown into one fine tuned beast of a band with a ravenously devoted audience. Just their mere presence on stage was enough to cause the audience to erupt in excitement. Every patron, myself included, were soon found twirling about in a washing machine of bodies contorting to the music. I saw no fighting, and the smiles on the faces as they were crammed into one another was a testament to how much love this band garners. Generally there is plenty of disdain when people are crammed in like sardines so tightly, but this was an event where it was almost as if the closer we were to one another the more the music coursed through each of us.
Throughout the show old fans were serenaded with hits and favorites, but at the same time the band managed to educate others about their more recent tracks. Old or new, it didn’t seem to matter to the audience what they played, because they ate it all up. It was quite nice seeing a band that I always thought had such great potential with their music proving to me that they had indeed achieved it. My hat goes off to all the guys in the band, as they put on one of the most superior punk shows I have seen in ages. It was truly a blissful experience to witness, and I truly hope things continue to evolve even further with this band for quite some time to come.
Earlier in the night The Flatliners put on an entertaining set of reggae/ska inflections tied in with punk, keeping the crowd grooving properly until the headliner. These guys from Canada provided nice points of humor during their sets, which were an added bonus in the humid soaked venue, because if you didn’t laugh a bit about it you probably were already melting on the ground. All in all they gave the audience the proper rinsing of good tunes right before Strung Out took to the stage, and the audience entered complete and total musical insanity, but in a good way, of course!
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