Girl at the Rock Shows

My boyfriend was working sound for the show on Sunday night at The Fine Line. He warned me that it was almost sold out (and it did ultimately sell out) and to brace myself. Normally, this would really irk me. The Fine Line is one of the few venues in town with national tours and doesn’t offer a photo pit. This means I have to take my photos from the audience. At chill, less-than-sold-out shows, this is no problem, but when the numbers start creeping to sold-out status and the music is intense, this can be anxiety-inducing for me. Not when it came to Sunday night. Although taking pictures was part of my job, I was there more to enjoy the sound of pure intensity and slight chaos from across the world. Pictures be damned, I was going to enjoy the crap out of the stacked Sunday night bill.

Australian metalcore rockers Heavensgate were the first to take the stage. Although only given about twenty-five minutes on stage and the first of a lengthy four-band lineup, Heavensgate instantly caught my attention and the attention of the enormous crowd. Although a relatively young band in the grand scheme of things, having formed during the pandemic lockdowns, Heavensgate has honed in on their sound, creating the perfect blend of modern-day metalcore with a more classic hardcore groove. Sure, the audience was still warming up to the night, and we still had a lot of metalcore to go, but it’s safe to say that Heavensgate caught everyone smart enough to show up to this show on time, including myself. I know they are a long way from home, but I hope to see their name pop up more in the future because their live performance breathed a sense of life into me that I so badly needed on Sunday night.

Alabama straight-edge metalcore band No Cure was up next, and to say that they destroyed The Fine Line would be an understatement. Most of the elements that came together to create the intense and furious sound were familiar, but the way this band pieced them all together to make their unique sound is what really struck me. You had a very classic hardcore instrumentation with the more metal-leaning guitars giving No Cure that standard metalcore sound, but then you had vocals bridging into the death metal world of things. It was an intense sound that the audience responded to appropriately in the way that, by the second song, a giant hole had opened up in the middle of the sold-out audience, and bodies were falling from the sky (okay, that’s dramatic, but it was during No Cure’s set where I spotted my first stage diver).

Philadelphia-based Varals were up next. This is one of those bands that, for a short time, I felt like I was seeing multiple times a year. I could be way off on that, being that I could only find mention of them in my blog from a show in November 2021, but honestly, I used to live and breathe metal shows like this, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I had seen them multiple times before that. None of this has anything to do with the monstrous set on Sunday night. They tore the roof off The Fine Line with the help of an almost constant stream of stage drivers and crowd surfers. Varials has been around since 2012 and has faced several lineup changes, most notably when it comes to the vocals. Sunday night’s performance showcased vocalist Skyler Conder (CELL) as the newest addition to the lineup, and I honestly hope that Skyler sticks around. His intense stage presence and aggressive voice added that perfect cherry on top to an already insane set.

Closing out the sold-out Sunday night extravaganza was Swedish metal lords thrown. Although not super familiar with their material, the first time I heard a song from thrown, I knew that this was a band that I just had to see live. I had high expectations as they took the stage, and, unsurprisingly, they hit all of those expectations and then some. Sure, for someone who hasn’t fully immersed themselves into the metalcore scene, I absolutely understand how all of the bands that performed on Sunday night sounded the same, but, for me, I really loved the subtle nu-metal influence that I got from this final band of the night. I know that nu-metal can have a negative connotation behind it, but, really, in the case of thrown, it’s genius. It gives their sound a little extra edge when compared to the previous three acts, and although it was getting late and I had work looming ahead of me in just a couple of hours, that uniqueness and the sheer brutal power that they brought to the stage was more than enough to keep me interested and engaged until the very end of the night.

I kept to the back of the venue for the majority of the night. Honestly, I’m just too old to pit like I used to. On top of that, I now carry around a bag full of camera gear that I would be heartbroken to see get broken. Even with that being said, I left the show on Sunday night feeling sweaty and exhausted just from watching the excitement and trying to capture it all, both in words and pictures. I’m not sure if I did the show justice on either front but I am sure that Sunday night with Heavensgate, No Cure, Varials, and thrown was a heck of a way to kick off my week.

Line Up:

Heavensgate

No Cure

Varials

thrown

Venue: Fine Line

Smell-O-Meter: Sweat

Average Age of the Crowd: 24

Crowd Surfers- Lost Count at 32

Stage Divers- Lost Count at 32

Mosh-ability- 12 out of 10

Amount of Beer Spilled On Me While Walking Around- 0 (surprisingly)

Broken Bones- None Noticed

Spotted Flying Through The Air- Bodies / Hats / Drinks / Shirts

Sausage-Fest Meter – 13 out of 10

Fights- None Witnessed

Pukers- 0

Passed Out People- 0

Idiots Taken Out By Security – 0

How Many Times I’ve Seen These Bands Before (or at least how many times I can remember)-

Heavensgate – 0

No Cure – 0

Varials – 1

thrown – 0

Celebrity Sightings – None

Overall Score – 9.2 out of 10

Show on Deck — Sonic Sea Turtles / Fragged Out / Cavernous Maw / In Solid Air

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