I Love Livin’ in the City
A cool thing about these things is I get to bring bands to the forefront of people’s attention. I get to showcase bands I enjoy to see a lot. It creates an exercise in writing too, as I see bands more often trying to put different words into my take for the night. Tonight was a great night to see bands you don’t hear enough about from me that I think are fantastic, along with my usual staples of awesome local punk bands.
Right off of the bat, I got to see Jesse play in his band Hobo Bastard. Somehow, I didn’t know who this band was before tonight and I know two of the members of the band. The stars aligned that I finally caught their fast paced set. Jesse is a great front man for a punk band. Travis just continues to show me that if I drum, I don’t need a gym workout. These guys are awesome, and wish I didn’t take so long to see them live.
Following them was one of our ska punk staples in Phoenix, Jack the Cat. It was their usual high energy affair. Meanwhile, I try to wish to someone’s god that Nick move slow enough for a phone camera to capture looking less like the Flash with a microphone. One perk of a band Travis plays in being here tonight is, it is slightly more entertaining when Jack the Cat asks who can’t get a break. They are always fun to watch, and Nick easily one of the best front men of a band in Phoenix.
This was another night in a row for me where our touring band, Radical Fun Time, played earlier in the set order. These guys were easily the hardest punk of the night. That includes compared to Skull Drug. They had an awesome set. In addition, being from Minnesota gave us some insight into how bad it is with the oil pipeline protests and frequent coverage of it. Hope they make the trip back down again soon.
Next up is another band that I don’t cover enough on here, Krovak. Leigh, Mike, and Jairo are three of the coolest dudes in the scene. Not to mention they may have the best beer song locally, as they turned the PBR description on the can into a great punk song. They are always smiles, full of energy, and freaking fun to watch. If you haven’t caught one of their sets or heard their music, I can endorse that you take that action immediately.
Reading this site, you probably have guessed Skull Drug is a favorite of mine in our scene by how frequently they’ve appeared in my website’s short life. It means that they play a lot of shows I love to be at. There is always something different at each show including watching Justin play guitar on his back while slowly pushing with his legs down the steps of the stage to the floor. I have said this to Evan before, and I will put it here, thanks to their cover I can’t listen to the actual FEAR song “I Love Livin’ in the City” without thinking it is a little slow. All in all, it was a great night of great punk at the old Yucca Tap Room.
