sunday afternoon concert review time. i think the biggest feeling i got from the show last night was that i am old. when you’re getting pushed around by 17 year old girls with braces and look like you have a few years on at least 70 percent of the crowd, you start realizing that things are changing before your very eyes. man, and i’m only 21. imagine how strange it’s going to be ten years from now. (shudder).

on to the music though: the first band which i think was called ‘timmy goes boom’ (or something like that) was very good at doing what it seemed like they set out to do — play fast, loud, bad, annoying music. i’d definitely recommend missing them next time they come to your town.

the rest of the show was all uphill. the lawrence arms — who until last night i had only a passing familiarity with other than knowing they were made up of members of the late great slapstick — certainly made a fan out of me with their set. a nice tight 35 minutes of energized rock which was fun to watch and sounded great. i would have seriously answered their inquiry for a place to stay last night too, if i had more space here and less roommates, because they seemed like fun guys.

alkaline trio, who sadly were not headlining, still impressed me this time around. last time i saw them (last summer, maybe?) they didn’t seem that into it, and didn’t play at least a few of the songs i most wanted to hear. last night they managed to hit most of my favorites (although i understand there are too many to hope for all of them to get their turn), and were certainly excited about what they were doing. i sure do love to hear matt skiba scream, let me tell you. and hearing them play (and play well at that — the show sounded great) reminded me why i love them so much: their songs are fucking cool. not like i didn’t remember already — i did pay 20 bucks for the ticket — but hearing him scream out “tongue-tied, bleeding from your eyes, even christ himself would cringe at the sight of your scars…” right in front of you is a fairly moving experience.

last up, bouncing souls. i’ve drifted farther and farther from punk music in its purer forms, but i’m still mighty glad to have seen this band live now. if i were to have a personal punk renaissance, it’d be with the bouncing souls. they just had so much fun up there, and played so fast and loud and still put together a lot of great songs without falling prey to the ‘punk doesn’t have to sound good as long as its fast and/or angry’ beast. if i were more familiar with them i could list some examples (i think ‘kate is great’ was one, could be wrong), but sadly i am not. they pulled about 30 kids onstage to sing the last song with them too, which was another reason i have to give them credit (much to the chagrin of the house of blues staff, who tried to pull tenacious teenagers away from microphones and herd them off through the wings but fought a losing battle until the song ended). overall, a worthy show for sure. and one commemorated by the standard 12 dollar graveyard-picture black t-shirt to help pay for alkaline trio’s alcohol abuse. outstanding.