Strung Out / The Darlings

live in Cambridge (2012)

Brian Shultz

While I'd have been excited to see Such Gold and their new found sense of fast, technical melodic hardcore/punk precede Strung Out like they've done on many of these tour dates, it was not in the cards for Cambridge. Support instead came from the Darlings, Handguns and Tenebrae–a little less exciting than the band's tours of yore. Like many of the older folk attending this show, I arrived fashionably late, meeting up with a friend at the venue right around the time the Darlings took the stage. It would be generous to say the downstairs of the Middle East was even half full at this point. I wasn't really sure who this band was (and I wager the feeling was shared around the floor), but apparently they've toured with all the punk veterans of their state: Bad Religion; Pennywise; Guttermouth. They played somewhat dated melodic punk with a pretty straightforward rock slant, which nonetheless seemed to get the push-pitters warmed up a bit with some head-bobbing and dancing in place. (My friend pointed to the singer at one point, offering this observation: "You know why Social Distortion plays 12 shows a year in Orange County? THAT guy.") They kicked out a seemingly impromptu cover of Guns N' Roses's "It's So Easy," which looked and sounded competent enough; while the set was far from repulsive or anything, that was probably one of the more memorable moments.

The venue filled up a little more by Strung Out's scheduled start time at 11 p.m., preventing that sad sense of pity that washes over you when it's clear you're watching an aging band become less and less relevant to their own fans. While that might be true to a certain extent in select cities, this was the Twisted in a Suburban Wasteland Tour, where the band would be playing two of their undeniably best full-lengths back-to-back–the sort of special tour where a band's proper draw in the present day is obviously harder to determine. For the record, I'd have preferred An American Paradox in Suburban Wasteland Teenage Blues's place–perhaps with The Element of Sonic Defiance sandwiched in between?–but I may be in the minority here. Hell, at least it would have been a more rounded 10-year anniversary for one of the releases, as opposed to the random 16/14 in place.

Keep in mind, here: I wouldn't place Strung Out anywhere near the top tier of personal favorite bands, but they were a crucial cornerstone to my introduction of punk rock. A friend in high school turned me onto them through these two very albums: Suburban Teenage was the first I listened to, followed shortly thereafter by Twisted. If the EpiFat skatepunk sound is considered *the* gateway entry to an entire world kids like me had known very little about, I was certainly no exception. And while Twisted seems like an insane leap both musically and sonically from Suburban, having only been released two years later, I'd still place the latter in the band's top three (everything else ranging from "decent" to "mediocre"). So this was a tour worth attending despite weak support here.

Air raid sirens played on the PA as the band walked out to warm applause. The pit almost immediately spread out and it was like nothing had changed in the last 10 years (or hell, 15-20 for all I know). I believe the first time I saw Strung Out was in 2002 at New York City's Irving Plaza (their go-to spot in NYC during these peak years) with Poison the Well, Rise Against and Rufio. I was a wide-eyed, naive 16-year-old who tried "moshing," as it were, for the first time, which meant jumping and slamming my emaciated frame into the backs of much burlier men as abrasively as possible. It was quite the rush for someone attending their first bigger punk show (the in-between of local church-held gigs and wherever Green Day was playing around this time), although the appeal of crashing into people as directly as possible was something that wore off well before high school ended. Not so much for many of the grown men here at the Middle East, shoving each other and skipping around sloppily like Warped Tour 1996 never ended. Must have been paradise, especially for those wearing Strung Out shirts, a supposed scene faux-pas shared by one of the band members themselves (given the option, I guess I wouldn't wear a Handguns shirt either).

The band plowed through their sophomore full-length with only a few frills to entertain, like slipping in a glimpse of Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (ingrained in my hick memory best by Nirvana's Unplugged, naturally) into "Bring Out Your Dead." Speaking of that song, it was one of the main highlights, next to "Solitaire," of course, and "Radio Suicide." Those tracks logically received some of the bigger responses, though there seemed to be the fair share of finger-pointing and crowd-surfing going on (those participating in the latter receiving a mild scolding from venue staff merely trying to respect Boston's goofy "audience participation" policies).

Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues set list (11:01-11:43):