W W W . E X O D U S T E R . C O M - P L E A F O R P E A C E / T A K E A C T I O N

Plea For Peace/Take Action Tour:
Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music, Cave In, Selby Tigers, Thrice and Mike Park
@ Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC
9/05/01

As mentioned in our preview of this tour, the Plea For Peace/Take Action Tour is a benefit tour supporting The Hopeline Network 1-800-SUICIDE presented by Sub City and Asianman Records. 15% of the total revenue from the show will go to charity.

Kicking off the long evening of bands was Mike Park playing acoustic. Interspersed by Mike talking about the benefit and other political and social issues, he ran the gambit between old songs that appeared on the Bruce Lee Band CD and new stuff that will come on his solo forthcoming album on Asianman. This included the wonder songs "A Girl Name Spike" and "Don't Sit Next To Me Because I'm Asian," as well as new songs including the one on the Plea For Peace comp "Can You Get Me Out Of Here."

After being puzzled over where the famed Eyeliners (Lookout Records) were, it became obvious that for whatever reason they would not be making an appearance that evening. Disheartened we turned our attention to Thrice (Sub City Records) and expected little. Thrice managed to crush our expectations and rock our worlds. Playing a mixture of punk/emo and heavy hardcore, reminiscent of early Cave In and thus ironic, they totally rocked out. Although the crowd did not find the sound entirely pleasing, they sure turned a few heads and made some new fans. If you like the sound of old Cave In and bands like Taken then Thrice is worth checking out.

The Selby Tigers (Hopeless Records) quickly took the stage and I realized that the speed of the bands setting up was refreshing; almost like the Warped Tour but without all of the annoying people everywhere. Selby Tigers, out of St. Paul, MN, bounced around in the Twin Cities punk world in different bands before coming up with the current lineup. Playing a fairly straight-ahead brand of punk they have a distinctive and excellent live show. Central to this, is Sammy's, the bass player, comedy. Having some bizarre Italian/Spanish accent, he uses atypical phrases that you could image Europeans saying, like "You'll be as pleased as punch…." Highly recommend checking them out if they come to a town near you. Fun.

Next up were Cave In (Hydrahead Records) and their highly crafted musicianship. The last time I saw Cave In was in a tiny bar in the middle of Long Island like five years ago, so I was hyped. However, I didn't understand, though, I knew, how much they have changed their sound even from Until Your Heart Stops. Playing most of the stuff off Jupiter and the like, they weaved their space rock progression accompanied by a fair amount of noise and the usual Brodsky odd tunings. Most of the crowd without earplugs had some serious difficulties dealing with Cave In at this point. Cave In's intensity and love for what they are doing comes across very well in their playing and helped remedy the awkward situation.

After the throng of southerners cleaned out their ringing ears the famed and fabled Hot Water Music (Epitaph Records) took the stage. Hot Water Music always manages to sell the place out and stuff it with indie rock Hessians. Appearing very clean cut, they played a majority of stuff off the new album A Flight and a Crash, but interwove those songs between old classics from all their previous releases. Included in this was the hit "Minnow," which got anyone who wasn't a fan to instantly become one, even sorority-type hoochies who only showed up because the bands were at/resembled the x-games. It's cool, nowadays it is all about maximization. As a side note, I seems the Hot Water Music final were able to get a phatty phat touring bus after years of cruising around in a beat up van.

Closing the evening were 'on-the-verge-of-being-superstars' Alkaline Trio (Vagrant Records). This was the last date for all the Alkaline Trio to be playing and for the rest of the tour the lead singer Matt Skiba will be playing an acoustic set and Hot Water Music will take over the headlining spot. In the recent past, the Trio has been touring with the likes of Blink 182, which means it is only a matter of time before they are selling millions of records. At this point in the show, all the kids are going crazy, jumping around and screaming the lyrics. Apparently, they all know something that I don't. While the Alkaline Trio is good at what they do and bring a nice touch of melody, they seem to lacking a good sense of dynamics. This point may have been more prominent given that they followed one of the best live bands in the world in Hot Water Music, but it may just be the case. In the end, as always, subjectivity reigns supreme.

Later, Zero Zero (Jade Tree Records) and Strike Anywhere (Jade Tree Records) will join the tour, thus adding some new blood to the event. It would have been cool to check out the tour early and then later on. Hopefully, for all those interested, you get a chance to check out this tour of the year. Next year, if the planets are aligned in the correct manner, Asianman and Sub City will work together again to present another kick ass tour.