I arrived at The Ritz later than expected and found a venue jam-packed with underage kiddies who'd gotten the memo that I missed about the earlier door time. Every show's the same — they get younger, I get older and more intolerant.

By the time I made my way inside, Canadian post-hardcore five-piece Silverstein was about to hit the stage. I used to listen to Silverstein and the headliner, A Day To Remember, but I've phased both out of my system and have, for the most part, moved on to bigger and better music. Silverstein performed a set of mostly newer songs and only four from their first album, When Broken Easily Fixed. I wish they could have dug deeper into their catalog and pulled out some more earlier songs, but they just dropped the new album (A Shipwreck in the Sand) in March. Promote, promote, promote.

August Burns Red always puts on an entertaining live show. Interestingly enough, I've never listened to them outside of a live setting, and if their studio releases are as good as their performances, I definitely need to seek out some recordings. I'm not sure I understand the whole arms-outstretched-downward-kick-drop maneuver of frontman Jake Lehrs [pictured right] — I've seen this before by the lead singer of Suicide Silence. Not sure if that is a hardcore thing … or an interpretation of choreography from Jesus Christ Superstar. Either way, the crowd was dancing as expected. Well, actually, it was more like “Oh, hey guys, look — there's Jackie Chan filming for the new Karate Kid movie! Let’s show him all the Kung Fu moves we know!” Just for the record, none of those kids knew Kung Fu.

This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2010.