"Did anyone see the new Rambo? We just saw it last night. This song goes out to John Rambo, wherever he is," vocalist Jeff Moreira said. With that, post-hardcore and metalcore titans Poison the Well ripped into "Zombies Are Good For Your Health," a song from their 2003 album, You Come Before You. Rambo? Zombies?
Such topics would make one believe that PTW is a death metal band with uber-serious looks plastered on their faces, but they really are just five regular guys who play heavy music and are not afraid to joke around.
Barring this slightly humorous anecdote, it was business as usual at the School of Rock, the South Hackensack, N.J. venue where PTW recently played. By day, the School of Rock is an educational institution that teaches kids how to play instruments and even has them perform with popular musicians who pass through town. By night, it has become an important and burgeoning club for national touring bands as well as local acts.
Crime in Stereo, a hardcore-turned-pop-punk band, opened up the show; although they had a lot of energy the songs were not great. They had some fans who sang along to all the words, and there was minor mosh pit action. Dance Gavin Dance, in addition to having one of the worst band names that I have heard recently, is a screamo band with two vocalists. One of them screams, one of them sings. I have not heard that before. The band was very dull and the music was simply formulaic.
The Chariot was up next and may have gotten the strongest reaction of the night, even more so than PTW's enthusiastic crowd response. A Christian metalcore band from Georgia, the band has a very powerful presence, and although their music follows the same pattern of chugga-chugga riffs and ten-ton breakdowns, they induced quite a visceral reaction from the kids. The mosh pit ninjas, as I like to call them, flailed their arms and legs with abandon and climbed over each other to reach for the mic that vocalist Josh Scogin was holding over the crowd throughout the set. It was going to be hard for PTW to summon as powerful of a response from the crowd.
Finally, we get to Poison the Well, a band that has released an EP and four full-length albums since they started in 1999. With numerous member changes and both national and international tours behind them, the band still has passion for what they do, and they put all their heart into their live shows.
The same cannot be said for the despondent crowd. The crowd basically did nothing during the first song, "Loved Ones." Guitarists Ryan Primack and Bradley Clifford were jumping and bounding about the stage, as Jeff yelled the bridge of the song, "You look tired and run down," which may as well have been written about the audience.
The problem with the crowd that PTW drew is that many people just wanted to hear the songs off their first album, The Opposite of December. It is their heaviest work (you know what that means, easier to mosh to), and is considered a metalcore classic. In my eyes, the band has gotten better with You Come Before You, and even better with their latest album, 2007's Versions.
They have gone in a more melodic direction but retained the heavy elements that have defined them from the beginning. The crowd seemed to save its energy for such old barnburners as "12/23/93," "Nerdy," and "Artists' Rendering of Me." One juvenile comment yelled at the band early in their set was to play "Nerdy," a staple of their live set. Why would one feel compelled to yell out a request for a song that the band is basically guaranteed to play?
It must be something in the water or the air that incapacitated the kids. After all, it is Jersey.
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