Review: Bear vs Shark 7/18/05

John (!) Bear vs Shark July 18 2005

#21
July 18, 2005
Fear Before the March of Flames
Curl Up and Die
Bear vs Shark
Fire When Ready
Fares Well Without
The Champsion Ship, Lemoyne PA
Photos!!! More Photos!!!

Once again my odd-Coheed (19) viewing is kicking my ass (or rather the car's front bumper). What did I do to deserve this anyway? Overall not too bad of a day....took the day off, picked up the new Co&Ca comic, bought my 3IoB tix, got guestlisted (thanks John!), and accomplished my dual goals of seeing Bear vs Shark and flirting with the redheaded drummer in FBtMoF (who really is even cuter than I thought he was before).

Anyway...Fares Well Without is a PA-local metal(core) band that sounds kinda like As I Lay Dying (which they curiously do not list among their 'influences'). It was pretty OK...those kids were really obnoxious though.
3/5

Fire When Ready are upstate-NY-based indie punk. I actually really enjoyed their set, even if it didn't seem to quite fit the overall theme (was there an overall theme? scream-shouted vocals maybe?). I don't know what they did to their bass and several mics, but they had a couple sound problems. Overall very good...
4/5

And of course, the mighty Bear vs Shark. Now new and improved - playing several new songs from Terrorhawk (which as you will recall I had to harrass Tower Records employees to get at 8:30 PM the day it came out because they still hadn't put out the new releases...idiots). Anyway, it was starting to get real hot in the club (though apparently not as hot as the place they played the previous day). I got some good photos this time too (possibly coming to their site in the near future). There were some other DC/Baltimore folks there - next time we've got to coordinate, people! Oh yeah, BvS rocks!
5 stars on this, my fifth viewing of BvS

Curl Up and Die - is that an imperative or a just a statement? Have I seen this band before? No idea...hardcore stuff...there were some karate moves going on in the back. So hot...sweating...ugh
4/5

Fear Before the March of Flames...hey at least this time I didn't get lost. Excellent set. Proof that Equal Vision Records inserts subliminal messages into their free compilations? I'm still not sure about that (Marc thought Coheed might do something like that, which would explain a lot actually) but FBtMoF is awesome. I got some nice photos of them too (bad-ass!). Brandon is indeed cuter than I had remembered...I think he must be quite the ladies man. I may have to actually start the 'stalker wall' to which I keep referring.
5/5