Something magical happened when Turnstile played a sold out show at the Fuze Box in downtown Albany last Monday.
There was a certain aura, an ambience, if you will, that had been missing from Albany’s hardcore scene in recent years. Inflated egos and scene politics had been stepping over what was once considered by many to be one of the best hardcore scenes on the East Coast.
Well, fret no more fellow two-steppers and fist-swingers, because those dark days are on their way out. And if you’re currently asking yourself how this is possible, please direct your skepticism towards the over 200 rowdy youths who redefined the phrase “setting the fuck off” during Turnstile’s performance last week.
Albany hardcore, prepare for a new era of nonstop feeling.
But the evening didn’t quite start out the way it ended. South Carlolina’s Discourse opened the show with their breed of muscular hardcore. Though, with the exception of their superb drummer, they failed to provide any memorable moments on stage or showcase anything to make them stand out musically.
Ohio’s hardcore-tinged, thrashy, death-metal outfit Homewrecker followed with a quick and relatively forgettable set. Regardless of the fact that hardly anyone in the crowd knew their lyrics, their confusing meld of genres felt out of place aside the other bands.
It was blatantly obvious that 90 percent of the crowd was there for the Turnstile, who are closer to punk than death metal anyways, so perhaps Homewrecker and Discourse would’ve stacked up better against a heavier headliner.
Nevertheless, the notoriously brutal Harm’s Way were the final band to take the stage before Turnstile and they managed to elicit a sizeable, devastating pit. Their beatdown-hardcore-infused death metal jams are fundamentally designed to ensure violence when played live, and their body builder-of-a-frontman did a superb job of legitimately intimidating every soul in the room.
At this point in the evening it looked as if it was shaping up to be the average heavy music show in Albany, which is typically nothing short of great. However, right before Turnstile took the stage the anticipation of those 200 kids began to reverberate throughout the walls of the tightly-packed club. Greatness was beginning to sound like an understatement.
And as the first note of the instrumental stomper “7” rang out, the room exploded into a turbulence that the whole scene so desperately needed.
An unrelenting barrage of stage-divers kept the band company throughout the entire set as the massive pile of fans directly in front of the stage multi-tasked between shouting back lyrics and providing a surface for divers to land on.
Vocalist Brendan Yates quite literally became one with the crowd, as he frequently tossed the mic into the horde, dove in himself, and let whoever was lucky enough to catch it take over for him. For some of the songs, such as the fan-favorite “Death Grip,” Yates wouldn’t even come into contact with his own mic for the entire first half.
It was more than just a performance. It was a perpetual synergy between band and fan.
The rest of the band was spot on as well. Lead guitarist Brady Ebert didn’t miss a single note during his shred-fest solo in “Fazed Out” and the raw, crunchiness of their recorded music was replicated perfectly.
The band’s famously danceable, groovy riffs were pounded out with enough heft to make it physically impossible not to head-bang along to. Although, in most cases the skull-thrusting wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy the raucous pit-goers who were practically salivating over what was essentially the quintessential soundtrack to “two-stepping.”
But unlike most Albany shows, the pit never became a menacing ring of violence reserved only for the biggest and most vicious attendee’s. Turnstile’s inherent light-heartedness and carefree demeanor rubbed the crowd in a way that incited impulsive mischief, such as jumping off monitors, railings, and other people’s heads, but all in the name of good fun. The “tough-guy” persona that often plagues heavy shows was nowhere to be found. Everyone was an equal and everyone was a friend.
On the band’s latest release, their critically acclaimed debut full-length “Nonstop Feeling,” they experimented with a multitude of genres that all happened to flow together seamlessly. The variety on “Nonstop Feeling” was a breath of fresh air in a stale genre and the band was able to maintain that unique harmony between heavy and light live.
Songs such as the soft-sung and infectiously catchy “Blue By You” were met with just as much elation from the crowd as the slamming “Canned Heat.”
Did a performance by one of hardcore’s most-talked about up-and-comers single-handedly revitalize the deteriorating music scene of an entire city? Maybe. Or maybe not.
Either way, the 200 sweaty, sore, and smiling people leaving that club last Monday felt a sense of inexplicable hope that a new beginning had arrived. Now that a sold out hardcore show has been proven possible, it’s up to them to decide whether or not they want the feeling to subside.
-Eli Enis
