September 14, 2013 • Ace of Cups, Columbus, Ohio
Goners
Finally got to catch these guys after missing their set at the Family Curse show. Relatively standard garage punk, but it was definitely more fun than your average garage stuff. Simple but with a good amount of variance over the set, and entertaining to watch.
• Only the Second-Most Trashed Cymbal I've Seen Award
Hop Along
The surprise of the night. Aside from a few exceptions, normally I'm not really into indie pop / indie rock, so Hop Along is kind of out of my comfort zone. But I have to say that they really drew me in right from the start. Their music is really poppy, but in a good, uplifting way that also isn't afraid to get a little bit intense now and again, like the half-time slow-burning outro to their final song. Really great playing all around, especially the fantastic vocal performance. Good stuff.
• Most Coordinated Shoes Award
And then, almost everyone left. I guess Hop Along was the big act of the night. I can't imagine how shitty it must feel to know people paid to get into your show but they don't care enough about you to bother to stick around. I guess in this case, though, I can kind of understand because the next two bands were pretty different from the first.
Total Trash
The best phrase I could think of for Total Trash was "slacker hardcore". Relatively simple, yet pretty fast and intense, punk. Normally that kind of music would be right up my alley but Total Trash in particular came off as nothing particularly special. It probably didn't help that they were almost unintelligible—mostly the vocals, but the guitar riffs were a bit of a blur too—making them hard to follow and not particularly engaging. That's not to say they were horrible, though; maybe I wasn't just in the right mood or something.
• Most Effective Playing on the Floor Award
Messrs
Another extreme-hardcore band, this one local. Sort of a cross between old-school '80s-style punk rhythms with modern powerviolence and noisecore style. Unfortunately, also like Total Trash, I couldn't really get into them at all. Maybe it's just that, even though I normally like hardcore, I don't particularly like seeing it live. But Messrs simply wasn't appealing to me. A lot of their set seemed like they were just messing around—I guess that's partly a result of the extremely (and I mean extremely) dissonant and amelodic guitar style, which really turned me off. Oh well.
• Best Nail Polish Award
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