I was planning on hitting up this show on my own since none of my friends out here in Denver are big Gwen Stacy fans, and the rest of the lineup was pretty weak, but fortunately for me my buddy Jordan tagged along. For $15 you couldn't really go wrong, but this show attempted to be a waste of money, one of the few times when i feel let down but a live concert.
I've been a Gwen Stacy fan for quite a while, they have hardcore roots and don't really venture too much into metalcore which is nice. They have some awesome breakdowns with great sing alongs like "This is family, this is pure!" and i haven't had the chance to catch them outside of last year's Scream the Prayer Tour where they weren't playing anything from their latest release A Dialogue. I was pretty excited to finally catch them, and the fact that they were headlining was surprising to me since they didn't have that big of support last summer when i saw them at Sonshine and STP Tour.
Well, they still don't have great support and probably shouldn't have done a headlining tour, the venue was practically empty, easily less than 100 people. The front of the stage was maybe 2 people deep in the middle, and only about 10 kids were really dancing around. We stood near the back for previous bands but we knew that Gwen Stacy would call people out so we moved close to the stage. Sure enough Geoff, lead singer for GS, did call out two girls that were sitting up in the balcony and we spent easily 5 minutes coaxing them down to the stage. Surprisingly Geoff was using a plethora of foul language on the mic was threw me for a total loop.
Normally foul language at a show is nothing new, and i don't have a problem with it at all, but bands that represent themselves as a "Christian Band" and represent a known Christian label like Solid State Records, swearing on the mic seems a bit poor in taste. I was starting to wonder if the band no longer considered themselves to be representing Christ through their platform and after the show i was able to find out that in fact the band no longer considered themselves a "christian band" and that Brent, bass player and the founder of the band, was really the only Christian left. this was disheartening to say the least, but it is what it is.
After instructing the crowd to get "A#% to balls" and pack it in, all 40 of us enjoyed a set that opened with "The Path to Certainty" and then rolled through "The Fear in Your Eyes" and "I Was Born With Two First Names". They also played crowd favorite "Gun Held to the Head" from there initial demo. I believe they only played two tracks from their latest release A Dialogue which were "Profit Motive" and "The First Words" my favorite track. They closed with "Gone Fishing" i think.
The new band was solid, the new drummer Brett Sibley did well and adding the 2nd guitarist (Matt Strahl) really help the overall sound even if he was deathly ill. Frontman Geoff is solid, but he seemed a little off tonite, possibly due to some alcohol consumption before the show? who knows, either way he's pretty good considering there weren't many kids at the show, and he spoke about people using their heads to make decisions, and that the band is about "mutual respect" saying "when you die you're only accountable for yourself."
The other 2 bands we saw were City Serene and Lower Definition. City Serene is a female fronted mini-Attack Attack! with some electronic synth mixed in. they were pretty weak in my opinion, and once again i'm not impressed with female-fronted hardcore bands, i just don't buy it. Lower Definition has a solid sound and plenty of energy, but the lead singer totally ruined it for me. maybe it was the fact that he "drank three bottles of whiskey before the show" and was "totally faded" but he was just stumbling around and kept pulling the mic away from his face when he was singing the clean vocals like he was Justin Timberlake or something. never could hear him at all.
Just a bummer of a show. check out this picture and see how there was no crowd:
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