Terminal 5 seemed like quite the place to be on Saturday, September 14th when Circa Survive, Touche Amore, Balance and Composure and O’Brother made their way into New York City.
Although I’m not the biggest hardcore fan in the world, I was pleasantly surprised by all bands and the musicality they all brought with them. Standouts for the show definitely were Touche Amore and headliners, Circa Survive.
I have to admit that my favorite part of hardcore shows is that the majority of songs are under two minutes. Although this makes my job as a photographer a bit difficult as I’m only given three songs to photograph out of each set, this makes my job as a music listener easier. I find myself quickly zoning out of the music after 2 minutes, but with the short, sweet tracks that Touché Amore played (“The Great Repetition” and “Art Official”), I was fully engaged their entire set.
Touche’s rugged sound, yet polished lyrical content and musicianship, made way for a perfect set full of crowd chants and crowd surfers. I watched the same guy go over the barricade at least five times – after that, I lost count. I watched him get more and more tired after each time, but never fearing going over. The band continued to play many songs from their most recent release Parting The Sea Between Brightness and Me while keeping their older fans happy with older tracks including “Cadence” and “Broken Records” from their 2010 release, …To The Beat of a Dead Horse.
The other standout performance went to the night’s headliner, Circa Survive. Having not heard Anthony Green’s angelic voice live prior, I didn’t know what I was getting into. Friends had told me about how incredible he is live when they had seen them, and honestly, I wasn’t getting my hopes up. There were too many times I had gonee to a show with such high expectations and was let down. Green did the exact opposite of letting me down.
Opening the set with “The Lottery” and “Sharp Practice” from the band’s most recent release, Violent Waves, Circa Survive took its fans by the ears and didn’t let them go until the absolute last moment of the set. The band brought along with them confetti cannons (which took an hour to get all out of my hair) and a bunch of extremely large balloons to throw into the audience while the band played. Green’s incredible stage presence and amazing vocal range took over the room while playing track after track of fan favorites, including my favorite from 2010’s Blue Sky Noise, “Get Out.”
