21 Union Square, Never Enough, Traluma, and Brandtson
Friday, February 27th, 1998
A.D. Oasis, Goshen, Indiana

Big thanks to my friend Josh for putting this on. About a 100+ people from Grand Rapids, Fort Wayne and many other areas showed up for this good ol' rock 'n' roll show here in Goshen.

Starting things out was 21 Union Square, a band from Illinois. Their music was more instrumental than anything else. If singing was done, it was usually spoken word or yelling. Lots of starts and stops in the music, though. Not too bad, however, in this reviewer's opinion.

Next up was Never Enough. They are the artsits formerly known as Rest, but due to another band with that name, they are now Never Enough. Some of you may remember that they had the privilege of playing the New Band Stage at Cornerstone last year. What I heard from Never Enough was just some straight up rock 'n' roll. Good solid stuff. Nothing spectacular, in my opinion, but nothing bad, either.

Next up was Caulfield Records (Christie Front Drive, Giants' Chair) recording artist, Traluma. These guys just got done doing a tour for the past month with Cursive, on CRANK! Records. Once they started rocking out, things really got nuts. The band was all layed back, except for the one guitarist, who being up against a wall kept bouncing off the wall, leaning against it and sliding down it, and just sorta had his own little party over there. Traluma has the energy and emotion that presents a good rock show. One thing that made them so unique is that their two guitarist and bassist all sang, and all did so well. That, encoupled with their ability to manipulate the whole post-hardcore musical style left this reviewer thinking of one band in particular that they remind him of: Fugazi. But, not so much that you think "whoa, did these guys just rip off Fugazi?". Cause they don't, they just have a lot of similarities. Nevetheless, their new album, "Seven Days Awake" on Caulfield Records is definitely something worth checking out.

Finally, Deep Elm Recording Artists, Brandtson, finished up the evening. Up until this point, I had noticed that all the bands were just getting better and better and not one had been poor so far. Well, that didn't stop with Brandtson. They played a lot of new stuff including both songs that will be on their upcoming VBM 7". I must admit, their stuff off of "Letterbox" is very dark and melodic, but the new stuff they played was almost cheery, with some dark undertones. Much more complex, emotionally. One thing that amazed me is how laid back Myk Porter has become. When he was in Sixfeetdeep he was so intense and upfront about everything, but when they played I saw him joking around and happy and just having a good time. He thanked all of us for coming out to see them and told us that they had played the night before for 3 people, so seeing the crowd of 100+ was very nice. He also said that they were sorry for being late, (seeing as to how the show didn't get over till after midnight) and that it was all Matt Traxler's fault (the 2nd guitarist, also from Sixfeetdeep). That caused their drummer to laugh and then he told us that Matt had really bad gas as well. "It was a mess at the rest stop on the way over here," he said. That made all of us laugh and me happy to see that an emo band can play emo music and still be happy. Unfortunately, emo bands get tagged as being sappy and depressed, but Brandtson isn't like that. One thing about their live show that is quite impressive is that the drummer does a good part of the singing. Any drummers out there will realize that's an incredibly hard thing to do, yet Brandtson's drummer did it with ease. Finally, to end the night, I pressured my friend Josh (who set up the show) to tell them they had to play "Ninevah" or else they wouldn't get paid. When Josh told them this, their reply was, "We get paid?!" And then they proceeded to bust through the song with a good contrast in vocals between Myk and the drummer. An awesome, spiritual experience for me and definitely worth the drive up from college.

All in all, I was incredibly happy with the evening. Everything went smoothly and the sound was well done. All the bands were incredibly good and nice, too. I'd urge all of you to check out any of these bands if they're ever in your part of the country, because they all do a great little interpretation of rock and roll.