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The Baltimore underground remains stacked and packed with spring events.
I had the chance to attend two highly anticipated and well-attended events this past weekend, each occurring in a different pocket of the underground in which I roam.
On Friday, April 25th, TAKAAT (of Modu Moctar) began their first tour at Current Space with support from Bruce Willen (duo set with Sarah Manley) and Crying Laughing. Any show’s progression is a result of many factors, and the strengths of the bill combined with pleasant weather, rain holding off, leading to a chef’s kiss of an evening.
The crowd was dense with people that I have decades of fellow traveling in common. I was never short on conversation and saying “hello” to their babies and children. Each set built on the next. Bruce Willen and Sarah Manley were mellow. Crying Laughing were less mellow. TAKAAT was not mellow at all. Still, the evening’s music followed a kind of thread, each complimenting the next, each group mesmerizing in their own way as the energy rose.
The next evening, I attend the homecoming album release show for Jivebomb’s new LP Ethereal at The Ottobar. If Friday was a musically tight three act cycle, Saturday’s show was intentionally scattered, different musical bases covered over the course of a seven-act bill (plus DJ).
Despite arriving at doors, I found that my usual optimal spots for watching shows at the Ottobar were either taken already, “reserved seating” for the chosen few, or, as I found out, in the most pit. I soon moved to the back of the venue after a few “close calls,” my moshing days well in my past. Pictureplane’s DJ set was not Balisong’s pit-starting hardcore which was not E’s Cape Cod take on Powerviolence which was not Erode’s continual aggressive assault, but it did form a “first half”. I watched everyone head to the bathroom or the bar after the first four acts, a sort of “halftime moment” for the sold-out crowd.
The “second half” began with Cold Mega, during which there was no pit but much peppy bopping and dancing, and then Jarhead Fertilizer, during which there was most certainly a pit. Both sets signal ways to shift away from hardcore into other musical areas. Jivebomb was wise to choose a double kickdrum behemoth as the penultimate act, as their own sound heads more and more in that heavy direction. This gave a good lead-up to what their headlining set was to be; a sprint at full velocity and force, the Baltimore crowd knowing exactly what to do, berserker-mode in full effect. Once the bottles and cans start flying, I know it’s on.
Although I knew only a few attendees at the Ottobar show and said a few brief “hellos”, I was heartened by the emphasis on community and connection throughout the night. Cold Mega’s Justice Tripp wound up next to me in the back of the venue for a while, greeting fans, taking photos, and searching a box he brought for just the right t-shirt to give each person he spoke with. A call from the stage at one point of who was new to the scene and the responding whoops and hollers were greeted with enthusiasm, warmth and encouragement.
There is no guaranteed formula for a great show, and these two reminded me of the different ways the night can go well. It does not always happen, of course, but it is great when it does.
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Photos courtesy of Sam Levin and Zachary Moore
