by Ashley McAteer
The first Unitarian piled people in as the show began with Canada’s White Lung on Friday night. Although the band had to leave the show early, the set never felt rushed. Singer Mish Way definitely has a presence while on stage. With the microphone chord around her neck, she hopped around and projected an aggressive voice. The set mostly featured songs from their newest album Sorry, including “St. Dad” and “Bunny”. The band managed to fit a good amount of songs into one set.
Night Birds’ set can really be summed up in the way they introduced one of their new songs, saying “it’s fast so you probably won’t mind it”. No one seemed to. The highlight of Night Birds’ set was probably the band’s most recently released song “Maimed For the Masses” off their upcoming full-length dropping this summer. The song has been called an “Ode to Mick Foley” which followed a song that they dedicated to Hulk Hogan.
Metz began with a screaming sound check- a good indication of how their set would be, loud. Their sound was intense and people got into their song “The Mule” off their self-titled record released on Subpop Records last October. Before their last song, Metz thanked everyone for paying attention to them, which honestly would have been a hard thing not to do.
As headliner Iceage began their set with “Ecstasy” the crowd gravitated immediately to center stage. They mostly stuck to songs off of their new album You’re Nothing which was released in February of this year. They sang of the air being “thick with anguish” during “awake” which could pretty much sum up the vibe of the show. Overall, the bands were impressive and almost all seemed to be expressing some sort of rage whether through lyrics or performance. Every band had their own sound which was exactly that – no more no less. This made a lot of the songs run into each other but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I will absolutely see every band that played this show again.
