Converge, Coliseum, Pulling Teeth, and More Played Europa

photo (from a different show) by Jesse Angelo

by crustcake gerf (NYC)

When I arrived at Europa on Friday, the first of six bands-- Baltimore's Pulling Teeth-- was already in the midst of their set. Pulling Teeth play hardcore infused with metal and bits of thrash. They have a new album-- Paranoid Delusions, Paradise Illusions-- out tomorrow via Deathwish. A song from that album, "Bloodwolves," is streaming on their MySpace page and it's pretty epic.

Pulling Teeth were followed by Belgium's Rise and Fall, also on Deathwish. A friend commented that they'd have been somewhat unremarkable had they been from the States and I'm inclined to agree. Pretty straight-ahead hardcore, nothing ground breaking, but it's cool that there's music like that coming out of Belgium and it's great that they were able to make the trip into the US for this tour.

Next up was a personal favorite-- Coliseum. Because I'm an old man, I was standing far in the back in order to avoid the bulk of the crowd. This made it difficult to fully experience the band's live fury, particularly drummer Chris Maggio's, but this is a band that throws down every single show they play (and that's a lot of fucking shows). These guys pour their heart and soul into everything they do, and it's evident.

Next up was Ceremony, who are signed to Deathwish's 'sister' label, Bridge 9. They didn't make much of an impression on me, but people tend to say good things about them. They would probably be rad at a raging basement show.

Then, Genghis Tron. Still don't really get this band, but I'm going to listen to the record, finally. I swear. Throwing that shit on my iTunes right now. I'm curious. Color me biased (I'm a drummer), but I just can't get behind drum machine bands. There are exceptions, but they are rare. And honestly, by this point I was four hours into the show and really just wanted to see Converge. Six bands is simply too many.

Any show fatigue I had was swiftly erased by Converge, who played for over an hour and not a moment too long. They played a lot of the 'hits,' including personal favorite "Last Light," off their under-appreciated You Fail Me album. That song is the fucking jam. They played a few new ones, including one they recently leaked online, and first impressions were positive. They haven't lost their touch. Somewhere during their set Jacob Bannon got tackled into a stage dive and ended up in the crowd. As the culprit was quickly ejected, Bannon returned to the stage and the band picked up right where they left off. They closed with, not surprisingly, "Concubine" off Jane Doe, which is one of the most vicious songs ever put to tape.

This blog has some video clips from the show and this one has some photos. Brooklyn Vegan has a review and photos as well.