FIELD NOTES
Appreciate the response to the inaugural edition yesterday. Positive update that all articles moving forward should be available for free to read in their entirety. Hunter’s Log is for the people. Neutral update that the ‘Performance Experience’ section is now called ‘Performance Review,’ since I like that phrasing more. Also, I didn’t really think this through, but obviously I am not going to shows every single night despite the optics. So some of those in the future may be recalling an older show and not the immediately previous one. Luckily, I am dog-tired in writing this edition from last night’s affair. “And with that, we cue the music.”
THEME MUSIC: ‘We’re All To Blame’ by Sum 41 (2004)
Last week, Canadian pop punk icons Sum 41 announced a summer tour with The Offspring and Simple Plan. I had never seen them live until Riot Fest 2018, where they absolutely killed. The crowd response was much stronger than I anticipated for a Sum 41 set at 5pm on the first day of a punk festival. Their latest album, 2019’s Order In Decline is actually a pretty solid return to form, and it seems like they may be preparing the follow-up for this year. I might be skipping the tour, or at my most involved sitting on the lawn at the locally maligned Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, IL. The Offspring were previously one of the most boring bands that I’ve seen in concert, and even at my most angsty, Simple Plan was never my thing. ‘We’re All To Blame,’ the high-octane heater from Sum 41’s fourth album Chuck (I consider their 2000 debut Half Hour Of Power as a full-length, not an EP) isn’t anything innovative in the pop punk sphere, but is one of the heaviest songs the band has in their repertoire, aside from the balladeering chorus. Chuck in general still holds up as an emotional rock record with genuinely powerful moments, this song included or the self-reflective ‘Pieces’ which had a great entry on the MTV2 video-game-footage-meets-alternative-music show Video Mods. The music videos that Sum 41 does themselves have always been fun, whether it be poking fun at their contemporaries in ‘Still Waiting’ or the iconic abandoned dirt mountains in ‘Fatlip.’ ‘We’re All To Blame’ has the band “performing” on Solid Gold, the ‘80s disco and R&B dance program. They had the vintage TV filters down perfectly, a set of Solid Gold Dancers in tow. I’ll never try to convince anyone that Sum 41 is a dance band, but they’re just as fun as one.
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Rise Against at Metro, Chicago, March 30 2023
Just down the street from Wrigley Field where the Chicago Cubs celebrated opening band, local favorites Rise Against began their sold-out, three-night stand at the legendary Metro club. Noting that each of the three nights would have different setlist featuring various career deep cuts, the band flew through 15 songs in about 70 minutes, ending at a very reasonable 9:40pm. The first night’s setlist included the live debut of ‘Bridges’ from 2014’s The Black Market, and ‘Entertainment’ from 2008’s Appeal To Reason for the first time since 2011. A simple stage setup with a black and red logo banner a couple of risers, it felt like a classic stripped-down Chicago punk rock show, and the band was grateful to be able to bring that energy to one of the city’s most iconic spots. The Bollweevils opened night one with their catchy and direct pop-punk-rock, and Rise Against are continuing the local energy all weekend long with mainstays Smoking Popes at tonight’s performance and the relatively young Kali Masi at tomorrow’s. I’m not a Rise Against career expert and I don’t choose to put them on often, but they are such a fun band to watch live and I’m very lucky to call them a hometown band.
COMPOSITION SOUNDTRACK: nothing,nowhere. - VOID ETERNAL (2023 Fueled By Ramen)
When I first started hearing of “emo rap” in the mid 2010s, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. And then the more time I listened to artists like Lil Peep, Post Malone, and nothing,nowhere., the more I totally fell into it. There’s really no good reason why; it recalls an era of alternative music that I wasn’t particularly into, and incorporates trap hip-hop production which I’m very selective about. While nothing in music is truly “new,” this whole scene felt like something current and so of the now, and the two sounds coming together piqued my interest enough to follow a lot of the flagship characters. Today is the release of the new nothing,nowhere. album VOID ETERNAL, and while I write this I’m trying to fight the urge to switch the damned thing off. While there are still some of his traditional emo rap elements present, main man Joseph Mulherin has left most of it behind to go full-swoop-hair metalcore that he is not pulling off very well. It seems like a natural progression, with bands like I Prevail succeeding as well as they have combining emo, hip hop, and metalcore (as ugly as that may sound to readers, there’s something about that chaos I genuinely enjoy). I think the disconnect for me on this record is that I personally am not looking to nothing,nowhere. to make mosh music. Sometimes I need to be “in my feelings” as they say, where I’m punching in the new Mod Sun album God Save The Teen or last year’s it’s fine by SmrtDeath. For the most part, nothing,nowhere.’s approach to metalcore is extremely derivative and isn’t pushing genre boundaries in any capacity, it’s more like he’s chasing the popularity of his contemporaries. At first I was a bit surprised when he announced a tour with glitch-mosh metalcore act Wage War and the obnoxiously heavy, deathcore redefining, personal 2022 album of the year winners Spite. Now it all makes sense after listening to this nonsense. The guest list on this thing is a who’s who of emo and metalcore, featuring Underoath, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, and Silverstein on the nu metal influenced ‘THIRST4VIOLENCE’ which is far and away the best thing here. VOID ETERNAL is definitely a swing and a miss for me, but I still really enjoy 2021’s Trauma Factory and what I think is one of the best emo collabs of the last decade, ‘hopes up’ featuring Dashboard Confessional from 2017’s Reaper.