As soon as I heard Gainesville, Florida’s Post Teens were playing in Richmond, I was looking forward to the show. I’m from Gainesville myself, and I used to work with Rick and Tony from Post Teens at BFD, a restaurant in Gainesville. I was incredibly stoked to see my friends again. I had no idea Rick Smith (Torche) would also be touring with them, playing drums in Shitstorm. But this show, which took place on April 9th at Strange Matter, wasn’t just cool for personal reasons. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to in a long time. All of the bands on the bill impressed me.
As soon as I heard Gainesville, Florida’s Post Teens were playing in Richmond, I was looking forward to the show. I’m from Gainesville myself, and I used to work with Rick and Tony from Post Teens at BFD, a restaurant in Gainesville. I was incredibly stoked to see my friends again. I had no idea Rick Smith (Torche) would also be touring with them, playing drums in Shitstorm. But this show, which took place on April 9th at Strange Matter, wasn’t just cool for personal reasons. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to in a long time. All of the bands on the bill impressed me.
The lineup was a good mix of touring and local bands. When I walked in, I saw that they had the bands playing on the floor, which was awesome. Floor shows are a lot more intimate, and the dim lighting for this show was appropriately eerie. First up was Bitchmouth, a four-piece from Richmond. The vocalist, Kelsey, was intense. She looked like she could kick the hell out of anyone with her boots, and her voice was as intense as her look. This show was interesting to me because the style influences of these bands were all over the place, from 70s punk to power violence. Bitchmouth was a great opener, as they are a good example of punk that is representative of Richmond, and they were the beginning of a severity squall that night. In my opinion, Shitstorm should’ve also been the name of this tour.
Photo by Tony Lynch
Meth Lab was the second band up. They’re a three piece, also hailing from Richmond. You can tell by singer Chris Henley’s focus this isn’t their first rodeo. Meth Lab clearly has powerviolence influences, with an almost clean quality that I believe is DC-based. This band was aggressive and incredibly loud. It was like someone breaking drumsticks in your ears. A great part about the show being on the floor at Strange Matter, as opposed to the stage, is the sound still remains loud due to the reverberations from the cement floor, but listeners are one with the sound, as opposed to the sound being thrown at them. One characteristic Meth Lab had in common with all the bands on this show was the shortness of the songs. On their Bandcamp, most Meth Lab songs stay under a minute. At the end of the set, the band’s chilling feedback stayed with you.
From then on, the bands were touring bands. Rapturous Grief, a two-piece from Atlanta, played third. Two-pieces always amaze me. The songs they played were also super short, and I kept thinking I wished they were longer. The crisp nature of the vocals stood out to me. What differed from the other bands is that Rapturous Grief definitely contained some elements influenced by Black Sabbath. Parts of the songs sounded intentionally disjointed, to keep you hanging on edge. The vocals reminded me of Mauser, another band from Gainesville.
Shitstorm, a three piece from Miami, played next. As previously mentioned, Rick Smith is also a member of Torche, who I highly recommend checking out. The vocalist for this band was insane, and even if he had been playing an instrument at the time, there’s no way it would’ve held up with all the moves he was doing. At one point, he jumped up and kicked off the drumset. One big thing about South Florida bands is they all have incredible stage presence. The crowd was definitely riled up by this, as well as by the demonic vocals themselves. Along with most of the bands on this night, Shitstorm utilized blast beats, aka insanely fast wailing on the drums. This band has sound qualities that are otherworldly.
Last up was Post Teens, who I feel the need to be overly-exuberant about, mainly because they are such a fun band to watch! The members of Post Teens all have a strong involvement in music, from playing in other bands, to being involved with Florida labels like No Idea. Their influences are deep-seated in punk, but Post Teens were a change of pace for the show, with a more upbeat or poppy sound than the rest of the lineup. I definitely can remember hearing Marked Men and The Jabbers blaring from the kitchen when I worked with these guys, which is to say, these are some of their influences. The singer, Tony Marquez, always gets crazy during sets, and generally winds up crowd surfing while keeping the mic on hand (literally) by wrapping it around his wrist. During this entire show, there was a definite sense of unity among band and audience members–everyone was having fun. It was clear to me that people went to this show because they genuinely enjoyed these specific bands, and the type of music that would be played. This aspect definitely added to the overall mood of the show.
Post Teens were a good band to leave off with, because they ended the show on a positive note. Post Teens are genuinely nice and charming dudes, and I was so sad to see them leave, but the show was amazing! The whole night was like an incredible, violent bang-a-thon, with the cuddles coming from Post Teens.
