The Blood Brothers / Daughters / Kill Me Tomorrow

live in Cleveland (2004)

Scott Heisel

Tuesday nights are widely regarded as the worst night for a band to play a club. Turnouts are usually consistently low on Tuesday nights, for some reason, and bands usually dread the night, even if they're in a big city.

Well, someone forgot to tell Cleveland, because the line to get into this show stretched a quarter-mile down the block from the Grog Shop.

After patiently waiting for what seemed like an eternity [and what was, in actuality, around 30-40 minutes], I got inside, only to find out that Chromatics had already played. Don't get mad at me for not seeing them, I was there before they were even supposed to go on. Blame the line.

Next up was Kill Me Tomorrow. Not knowing what to expect when viewing their set up - guitar, bass, a strangely-assembled stand-up drumkit, and numerous drum machines and samplers - I was bracing for the absolute worst. What I got instead was some of the most unique music I had stumbled upon in quite some time. The only words I can think of to describe their sound are "dirty" and "sexy": these songs were raw blasts of power, with a goth-industrial tinge, that sounded like what the Faint would sound like if they grew up in the slums of LA and not the midwest. An incredibly solid set, to be sure.

Hardcore freakout experts Daughters were up next, and half of their set [which, truth be told, couldn't have been more than 10, 15 minutes tops] seemed to be open mic night for the singer, who cracked as many sardonic jokes as he screamed songs into the mic. In short, the dude was hilarious. During Daughters' set, the first real energy of the show was released by both the band and the crowd, with fingerpointing and moshing galore spreading through the far-beyond-sold-out crowd, raising the room's temperature a few notches [to roughly 150 degrees fahrenheit, give or take a few]. Twenty tiimes more intense live then on record, Daughters are a definite force to be reckoned with.

After an all-too-long gear change [really, any amount of time was too long at this point, considering just how fucking hot the room was], Seattle's pride and joy, the Blood Brothers, took to the stage and dived headfirst into 13-song set with brand new song "B. Horses." The kids didn't seem to care that they didn't know the words, or the appropriate points in the song to clap along or point their fingers in the air - they all simply went off, regardless of what was being played. The band took this unabashed enthusiasm as a cue to test out new material, which they did - seven songs of it. It ranged from the slow waltz of "Crimes" to the coulda-been-a-Burn, Piano Island, Burn outtake "Trash Flavored Trash." The one thing all seven songs had in common, however, was that they were all unbelievably powerful and strong, both in the musicanship and the lyrical voice patterns. The band's new album Crimes easily has potential to be their best yet, with this material.

Even though the set was very heavy on new songs, the band didn't forget about their old albums - "Jennifer" and "Birth Skin/Death Leather" represented their first two discs, and Burn saw a total of four tracks played off of it, including set closer "Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon". As the band unplugged and tried to leave the stage, they were mobbed by dozens of kids all wanting to shake their hands, ask for a pair of drumsticks, or simply give them a thumbs up for a job well done that night. The band deserved all the praise the audience was heaping upon them, as they are truly one of the best bands in hardcore right now.

To see the Blood Brothers' setlist, click here.

EXCLUSIVE LIVE VIDEOS
The Blood Brothers - B. Horses
The Blood Brothers - Jennifer
The Blood Brothers - Teen Heat
The Blood Brothers - Trash Flavored Trash
Daughters - Nurse, Would You Please Prep The Patient For Sexual Doctor

EXCLUSIVE LIVE PHOTOS
The Blood Brothers
Daughters
Kill Me Tomorrow