Paint it Black / World Inferno / Marked Men / Dustheads / Amateur Party - 1.5.08

First Unitarian Church
3PM

I'm not going to go into too much detail on this shows, since I waited way too long to write about them, but this was a great weekend.

Amateur Party opened and were great as usual. Lots of new stuff, as with the FEST. They need to get into the studio soon and record some of these new songs, because they're really awesome. There was a noticeable lack of Mike McKee banter, which was due to the early timeslot on a packed show, but it was definitely missed.

Oh no, what's this? It looks like trouble! Dustheads played their biggest show in Philly to date, and it was great to see them get a good reaction. I've read that there was a lot of their NY fanbase there, but there were definitely a far amount of Philly kids going off for them. Snotty, fast, angry punk/hardcore. One of the best bands playing this style right now, and I hope to see them in Philly a lot more.

I'd never heard the Marked Men before this weekend, but they're a power pop/punk band from Texas that shares members with the Potential Johns, who rule. Their set was good although I knew very little about them and obviously knew no songs. They sounded good though, and lots of kids seemed into it, which is rad. Their set at the afterparty was supposedly a highlight.

World/Inferno Friendship Society was next and I couldn't care less. "Cabaret" punk? Get the hell out. Lots of weirdo kids with staches and neon were stoked. I was confused.

Finally, after darkening the stage, Paint it Black came out and got an insane reaction right out of the gate. Yemin was extra angry, Josh and Andy were all over the place, and Jared made everyone forget who used to drum for this band. They only played a handful of songs from the new album (two of the same ones from FEST and "Past Tense, Future Perfect"), but it was obvious that the free CD everyone got that day was going to be hard to top for 2008. The ended, as expected, with "Memorial Day" and the stage was packed with kids crowding around Yemin. Great ending to an awesome CD release show.