On Saturday night my brother Citrus and I went to the Cro-Mags concert here in Edmonton at The Pawn Shop. This was the second night of two exclusive Canadian dates. The Cro-Mags are a New York hardcore band that have been around in one form another since 1981. While I never followed the bands career, I recall reading about them in Kerrang magazine back in the mid eighties. They always looked very menacing and tough in all the pictures I saw of them. I listened to them once back then and they weren't really my thing as I was more a metal head then a fan of the punk thing. They were one of the first bands thought to meld the metal and punk music together.
Now many years later, I appreciate their music and what it stands for, especially there first album The Age Of Quarrel. That album is a classic in the hardcore scene. I had never seen the band live before, and when my brother heard about the show, he said he was going to come up from Calgary for it. So I figured I would check the show out with him. The last show my bro and I went to together was the Terror show, another hardcore band, that show was off the wall for intense and violent. So, I wasn`t sure what to expect for this show, as Cro-Mags shows have been known to be violent affairs sometimes. Therefore we made sure to keep our distance from the dance floor. Hence why the pictures we got aren`t all that good.
The line up for Saturdays show were three local bands opening which were Ringleader, Tarantuja and Etown Beatdown. We missed the first band Ringleader and caught the rest of them, which made for a long night of loud hard fast music. All the bands were alright, but everyone was waiting patiently for headliners Cro-Mags. Whom didn`t hit the stage til one o`clock in the morning.
The Cro-Mags line up for this show was a who`s who of the New York hardcore scene, with original singer John Joseph McGowan on lead vocals, A.J. Novello (Leeway) on guitar, Craig Setari (Sick Of It All) on bass and Mackie Jayson (Bad Brains) on drums who has been playing with the Cro-Mags off and on since 1984.
The show was a quick fifty minute concert with the band playing pretty much all of the The Age Of Quarrel album. They did do one song from their second album Best Wishes, the song they did was Crush The Demoniac, it was weird for this line up of Cro-Mags to play this song as lead singer John Joseph wasn`t even a member of the band for this album, nonetheless they did this song, during this song, a member from the crowd, a long haired freak whom I had just had a smoke with outside earlier in the night, jumped up on stage and grabbed the mic and sang this song. In which he did a very good job of.
All and all the show was very good and not near as crazy as I was expecting. It was an older crowd of old school punkers and hardcore guys. The band sounded good and seemed to really appreciate the non violent crowd and all the accolades the crowd was showing them. I`m glad I went to this show, and big shout out to my brother for coming up for the show and making the whole day an awesome time from the long walk, the record shopping and hanging out, good eats and topping the night off with a great concert. Good times!!!
Few pictures from the show taken by my brother.
T-shirt.
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