Agnostic Front and Death By Stereo

agnostic front1 video by MrMentallo - Photobucket

agnostic front2 video by MrMentallo - Photobucket

I went into this show not expecting much as there were only 2 out of 5 original members of AF playing and I had never heard Death By Stereo before and I thought their name was silly. The opening bands Night Siege (really?) and Blunt Force Trauma played to a sparse but growing crowd. NS didn't thrill me too much. Nothing really to differentiate them from the next generic hardcore band out there. Monotone shouted lyrics, a basic step beyond three chord punk rock riffs and really tight pants with all the cool band shirts. They looked better than they sounded. BFT were a definite step up. They sounded like a cross between early Bad Brains and DRI playing modern hardcore. I wouldn't mind seeing them again.
Death By Stereo went on next and they showed why they were touring with Agnostic Front. Metallic hardcore with a really energetic singer who actually used shouted grunts as an accent instead of a main singing style. Loads of energy and they were really tight and polished. I'll definitely be looking them up in the near future.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...o/101_0019.jpg

Agnostic Front was next I ended up finding out after I got there that Vinnie Stigma on guitar and Roger Miret on vocals were the only two members of the band that had been around longer than that tour. I thought they sounded pretty good regardless of how long band members had been around. See above videos for examples. They played mostly old school stuff. Out of more than 25 -30 songs they played, I think maybe 5 or 6 were after Liberty And Justice For.... Any **** ups that happened were the fault of the old guys. They sounded really good though. I got to see them back on '90 and they were on par with that performance. Really energetic and engaging the crowd all the time. I did kind of get tired of all the hardcore cliches they were spouting like a mindless mantra all night. That schtick got old 15-20 years ago, but here the dinosaurs are still spouting it. Loads of "I'm an addict, I'm addicted to hardcore." and "NEW YORK HARDCOOOOOOOOORE". I mean if you listen to their Live at CBGBs album that was recorded in '89, it was the same exact stuff. It would have been a 9 out 10 show, but the first opening band was that bad. 8 out of 10 overall.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...o/101_0022.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...o/101_0023.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...o/101_0024.jpg