It’s a normal Wednesday afternoon, and I’m planning on seeing Hundred Reasons’ final show at the legendary Royal Albert Hall. Early in the day, I get a note that I’m approved for a photo pass. Instant adrenaline shot. About five minutes later, my friend Jay Jay French (founding member of Twisted Sister) texts me: “I’m in town. Are you around?” I say yeah, I’m heading to a gig tonight, and he says, “I’m in.”
Fast forward six hours and we’re walking through the gilded halls of one of London’s most prestigious venues. I never thought I’d be bringing a founding member of Twisted Sister to a post-hardcore show, but rock music has a way of creating these beautiful collisions.
Rival Schools started the night off. It’s no secret that these guys are best buds with Hundred Reasons. Funny enough, Rival Schools seems to be much bigger here in the UK than in the US. Now, while I’m honestly more of a Quicksand fan, I do think that anything Walter Schreifels touches is pure gold. Rival Schools made some fantastic albums, and they were on full display at the gig. “Everything has its Point,” “Used for Glue,” absolutely stellar.
The Royal Albert Hall isn’t built for bands like Hundred Reasons. Its ornate design and perfect acoustics were meant for symphonies and opera, not the raw, distorted assault of post-hardcore. But that’s exactly what makes tonight special. Watching Colin Doran scream his lungs out while surrounded by Victorian architecture is punk rock in its purest form—the invasion of spaces not meant for you.
After the first few songs, Jay Jay turns to me and says point blank: “Now this is a good band. I really like the singer.” When a guy who helped define heavy metal thinks your band is great after only just a handful of songs, you’ve done something right.
Colin Doran struts across the stage like time has stopped in the early 2000s, his voice, an instrument of controlled chaos, alternating between melodic introspection and throat-shredding urgency. The rhythm section of Andy Gilmour and Andy Bews creates the kind of thunderous foundation that rattles your ribcage.
Hundred Reasons really have no reason to stop playing, other than they should have been much bigger. Back when I lived in the US, I worked at Sony Music, and I remember one of our interns came to me with an advance of their album, and he said, “This is it. This is the next big thing.” It was his favourite band at the time, and he quickly turned on a ton of people to it.
Next thing you know, for one reason or another (the label will cite “credibility”), the album was removed from Sony’s release schedule and sent down to the indie arm of RED distribution. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but not this time around. A band like this at that time absolutely needed the major label muscle to break them in the States. With all the success in the UK, it should have been much easier. Chalk up another major label fuck-up.
But that doesn’t really matter now. This is about going out with a bang, going out on top, going out after delivering one of their best albums and ending on a high note, on their terms. Glorious Sunset, which came out in 2023, was a massive welcome back and a fantastic return. Tonight, they would play anything and everything, twenty-plus songs and half the set with a string section. Holy shit.
When the string section takes the stage midway through the set, it’s not the typical rock-meets-classical gimmick that bands trot out for their unplugged moments. This is calculated sonic warfare with violins as weapons. “The Perfect Gift” transforms from a post-hardcore anthem into something almost cinematic, the strings adding texture rather than softening the edges.
The Albert Hall crowd, a surreal mix of aging scene veterans in faded tour shirts and younger fans discovering the band through their recent resurrection, responds with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious experiences. During “My Sympathy” (performed for the first time since 2018), grown men are openly weeping. There is no shame in that game.
Songs like “Kill Your Own” and “Wave Form” hit with the subtlety of a sledgehammer but with arrangements that reveal new layers with each listen. As they close with “No Way Back” and the aptly titled “If I Could,” there’s no maudlin goodbye speech, no promise of reunion tours or cash-grab festivals five years down the road. Just a band playing like their lives depend on it, because in some cosmic way, they do. This is how you exit the stage, not with a whimper, but with a perfectly calibrated explosion that leaves nothing but scorched earth behind.
Hundred Reasons might not have gotten their due in the music industry’s bullshit lottery, but tonight they’re gods. And sometimes, that’s enough
RIVAL SCHOOLS
