Daughters/Tower Of Rome/Wolf And Cub

live in Chicago (2004)

Jesse Raub

My first experience at the Bottom Lounge, and I gotta say, it's a pretty sweet venue. It was also my first experience seeing (in the words of Space Ghost) some retardos doing some "hardcore dancing." At first, it looked like some kid was trying to do some mid 90s 3rd wave skanking, but then I realized this must be the "hardcore dancing" I had heard about. I was pretty shielded against it in Minneapolis, but I guess more kids go to shows in Chicago, regarding the fact that Chicago is like 40 times the size of my old haunt.

Not Enough Gold was first. I think I could sum it up by saying not enough talent. Seriously. When did Madball go scene?

Wolf And Cub were up next, and played a mediocre variety of metalcore. They had a guitar player who threw out some insane double tapping that even Eddie would be proud of, and overall the music wasn't bad. They were professional about it and played some complicated shit in difficult time. They were getting a rag from the crowd of sixteen year old losers, and I felt bad for them having to play to an unappreciative crowd of Poison The Well fans. They held their own though. Overall a good opening group, getting you excited for the bands to come without sounding like absolute terrible shit.

Tower of Rome took the stage for their record release show, and I must say, I wasn't impressed. They take influence from metalcore, grindcore, and no-wave noise, but they do it sloppily. They sounded bad on stage, like they didn't know how to work their instruments correctly even if they could play them. Some songs were only twelve seconds long, and they took too much time in between songs to start another one. My face went generally unrocked during their set. Plus, their song titles were way too long and uninteresting. A big boo-urns for them.

Daughters destroyed. They knew their shit, knew how to work it, and knew how to rock. First of all, the sound quality was a world of difference, and you can tell that they are a professional touring band, no matter what level of hi-jinx is present on stage. They opened with "And Then The C.H.U.D.S Came," blowing minds all over the place, and hitting every note and chord completely on. The best part is is that the scenester kids had no idea what to do when the music wasn't heavy enough for them to "hardcore dance." As insanely heavy that Daughters is at times, they really are more of a noise group and confused the youth who just wanted to punch people. They played basically all of Canada Songs, with a few tracks that I was unfamiliar with, and managed to ridicule everyone in the crowd while making the crowd love them even more. The kids were going nuts at times, jumping on top of each other to scream in the face of the singer, who had some of the best quips ever. When one kid said, "Woo!" during a quiet time between songs, he said, "Yeah, that's what I did. Good job." When a loser yelled out, "Super sassy!" he responded with "You're fucking retarded." They put on one of the best live shows I've seen in a long ass time, rocking the entire venue all over the place, even just a day after a car wreck in Louisiana, where they destroyed their van and trailer. The singer mentioned that he wasn't having any fun at this show halfway through their set, and told the crowd to pretend that they were starting over. They then proceeded to rock the second half even harder than could ever be imagined.

Daughters' show alone earns nine stars, but the other bands earned 5, so I placed the entire show in the middle, at a 7.