W W W . E X O D U S T E R . C O M - H O C K E Y . I S L A N D

Hockey Island
@ Ultrasound Lounge, Levittown, NY
7/23/04

After a slew of one-off shows over the past few months in Baltimore opening for various bands including the Oranges Band and the Unicorns, Hockey Island played their first official show on Long Island. Besides from playing for their nearer fans, as drummer Matt Petz said it was nice not to have to lug their shit too far to rock.

Given the proximity of NYC, there is a relative dearth of places to see "real" shows on Long Island. Besides from the now sweet Downtown in Farmingdale, all you have is random bars and VFW halls having shows. Otherwise you get locked into crap bar bands, cover bands and 80s metal acts reliving the good old days. This is mildly remarkable given the onslaught of LI bands in the trendy emo-core scene (e.g., Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Bayside…). The Ultrasound Lounge is where this dude Thunder Tom is trying to put on more regular shows each week. And this week, Tom scored with having Hockey Island open the evening.

Thanks to two-for-one's at the bar, a fair portion of the Hockey Island crowd was lubed up for the performance. Also, thanks to a new sound guy, the mic and monitor volumes were all fucked up - so that took some time to sort out. Except from the moderately off vocal volumes on the various mics, the performance eclipsed the band's recent demo/EP. Guitarist and singer Virat Shukla rocked hard as the lead man and looked about as comfortable as possible in this role. Guitarist Greg McKenna had the task of playing all the quirky and critical parts of the songs in his indie slack manner. In her favorite Bond Girl outfit, bassist Elena Fox kept the timing going along with Matt. I hadn't seen nor heard Matt play in a long time and he was infinitely better and illuminated the basic playing on the demo. The four-piece pierced through the six songs on the demo - "Fire," "Two Hippies," "Dark Weather," "Never Be Mine," "I Lost My Voice" and "Everything Twice" - with people who had heard the demo commenting at various points that every song was their favorite. Hockey Island also played a handful of new songs with the same panache as the older material. Along with a smoke machine and quasi-light show, you can't beat LI bars/clubs, Hockey Island was even able to rock the hardcore kids waiting for the headliner Earthling Massive.

Given this show and the reaction from the crowd, it would be a crime for Hockey Island not to play more in the area. With Virat now back in NY such exhibitions should now become commonplace. As part of their plan for label domination, Hockey Island are making serious headway.