We Are Not Meaningless Tour 2010

I was fortunate enough to attend the Oshawa date on the We are not Meaningless Tour at The Groove Lounge with the amazingly talented We Came as Romans hailing from Troy, Michigan, Four Letter Lie of Maple Groove Minnesota, Kingdoms; one of 2 Canadian bands on the tour from Kitchener Ontario, Therefore I am from Boston and Counterparts from Hamilton Ontario.

Literally every band on this bill put on an AMAZING performance that will be burned into my brain. The energy radiating inside of The Groove Lounge was just a constant progression until the floor was nearly caving in.

I have never even heard of any of these bands save for We Came as Romans until this show, and I am very glad I was able to attend this show because I enjoyed every band. The musicianship was top notch, the sound was incredible [save for some mic trouble at the beginning of Counterparts set] and everyone was really excited and involved in the show which is something a show can always lack, and something it always demands.

The band to open up the show was Counterparts, signed to Verona Records. I got a very strong Misery Signals vibe from this band, and all of the members seemed fairly young. Not that any of those things are bad, in fact, it was awesome to see such assumingly young people playing on a tour of this caliber, and at that, handling their instruments like seasoned professionals.

Counterparts consists of Brendan Murphy on Vocals, Alex Re on Guitar and Vocals, Jesse Doreen on Guitar, Eric Bazinet, and Ryan Juntilla on Drums.

In any situation, whether its a local act or a house hold name, it sucks to open up a show. These guys definetly did not let it bother them, even when the vocalists mic kept cutting out at crucial parts of their set, he still roared into it just as if it was working 100%.

I was mostly at the left side of the stage for most of the night, so I didn’t get a chance really to hear anything that was coming out of the right side of the stage, but I was able to gather a really good idea of this bands sound. The instrumentalists seemed alittle stiff, stage presence wise to be honest, but their energetic vocalist Brendan made up for it. This was my second Groove show, the first being with Uplift, another Positive Hardcore band, and the crowd at that show didn’t even come close to the energy displayed at this performance by Counterparts. An amazing opening act, and the perfect way to open up this equally amazing show.

I was very impressed by Counterparts, and I hope I can catch them again!

Up next we have Therefore I Am from Boston Massachusetts, the place as frontman Alex Correia described “where dreams die”

Therefore I Am was very verbal about their positive messages, which can be refreshing if done right. This was one of those times, and it was very inspiring to hear someone so adamant about their stance on non-material items and trivial things in comparison to happiness and self discovery. Therefore I Am consists of Alex Correia on Vocals, Brian Marquis on Guitar and Vocals, Travis Alexander on Vocals, Jim Creighton on Bass and Chris Fernandes on Drum duties.

Therefore I Am had a very present Post-Hardcore sound, very reminescent of Alexisonfire actually, but more of a AOF on speed and steroids.

In terms of musical interest, Therefore I Am was the least interesting to me, but before you get your caps lock and insults ready, I mean that out of a show filled with bands I heard for the very first time, Therefore I Am had the least appealing sound to me. AKA, I didn’t personally like them as much as the 4 other bands on the bill. That said, they were still an amazing band, and I am glad I was able to see them. They kind of had the opposite age situation going on compared to Counterparts, these guys looked to be the oldest out of the 4 other bands, but with their age, came astounding musical craftmanship and some of the most beautiful guitar tones and melodies i’ve ever heard live.

The third band on the bill was one I actually initially had low expectations for, Kingdoms.

As I write this review, I am actually listening to Daughters of Atlas; Kingdoms is easily one of the most amazing bands i’ve seen live, and they are my personal favorite from the entire show.

In my oppinion, Underground Operations [their label] has signed some pretty questionable acts recently; I.E. Stereo’s, Abandon All Ships, The Artist Life, etc And I had heard of Kingdoms in the past, and I knew they were signed to said label, so I guess I immediately categorized them with the above bands. A mistake I will never make again.

Kingdoms consists of Hutton Wierzbicki on Vocals, Paul Taylor on Bass, Chris Taylor on Drums, and last but certainly not least, Brett Hutton and Chuck Brooker on Guitar. If I got any of the band members wrong, please correct me in the comments!

This was probably musically the heaviest band on the bill, save for maybe We Came as Romans, but you could tell that they have a special place for melody and gorgeous clean vocals. Hutton’s clean vocals were surprisingly powerful, and trumped even the headlining bands clean singer in terms of lung power. Guitarists Brett and Chuck are also amazingly talented guitar players, and only further proove this bands legitamacy as a serious musical act. I would also like to point out the Rhythm section in this band is top notch; everything was literally better than I could have ever imagined. Out of all of the bands sprouting positive messages throughout the night,

Kingdoms was the only band that I actually truly 100% believed.

There were a few points in their set where I heard random delay on the vocalist Huttons voice, which I actually thought was poorly placed. It sounded like the sound tech was trying random things, and a few times he got it right, but most of the time it ended up making the vocals sound somewhat meshed together, and it didn’t sound good. When you catch it on the end of a scream or something like that, then it sounds good, but not when you turn it on during a consistant stream of screaming. Never the less,

I will definitely be attending their next concert in the GTA wherever it may be.

Before the show started me and my girlfriend Brandy were looking to buy a shirt to remember our adventure, and she had nothing but great things to say about Victory Records own Four Letter Lie. Their singer Brian Nagan was nice enough to sell me a shirt of theirs for only 14 bucks, which I actually haven’t taken off since last night! Yes, I am smelly.

Four Letter Lie were the definite musical standouts on this bill; They featured a very unique sound compared to the other bands, which had a very present Rock ethic, and was actually quite experimental. They still featured the popular Hardcore quirks like their fellow tourmates, but it takes alot of balls to play music that is defintely different in front of people who generally prefer to hear said quirks. Four Letter Lie was a refreshing change of pace.

This band consists of Brian Nagan on Vocals, Connor Kelly and John Waltmann on Guitar, Louis Hamel on Bass and Tai Wright on Drums.

These guys put on a solid performance, and I seriously still have “SHE MUST BE THE DEVIL” ringing on in my head. Singer Brian Nagan was not afraid to get close and personal with the crowd either, messing up hair, caressing hands, highfiving, and at one point even pushing a member of the audience into another member of the audience. All in good fun though! Maybe not for the guy who was knocked into the curtained off portion of Groove, but whatever, he was talking during this awesome bands set.

Just putting a personal pet peeve out there, and something that really got on my nerves during this bands paticular set;

If you’re not a real photographer, please go to the side or the back if you’re taking pictures.

Oh, and I can’t forget this one;

If you are more interested in TEXTING YOUR FRIEND WHO IS STANDING LITERALLY RIGHT BESIDE YOU instead of checking out a band that is playing their fucking hearts out for you on stage, then please DON’T EVEN COME TO THESE SHOWS. This is the second show in a row I have been to where people were texting during a bands set. Venues! Please kill your cell phone reception so these idiots will have to go outside to text each other.

While they’re beside each other.

Anyways, Four Letter Lie was an amazing act, and like every other band on the bill, I will go out of my way to catch them next time they are in town.

P.S. Brian, I appreciated you the most too 😉

There was a large pause at this point for We Came as Romans to set up and sound check, which took a good 30 minutes or so if I recall correctly. Most people were still at the front from Four Letter Lie, eagerly awaiting the shows headlining band, which I actually heard for the first time outside of the venue on my friends Ipod. I have strong oppinions about bands that use synth badly in their music, but We Came as Romans has minimal use of it from what I heard, and at that, it was woven into their songs well. The clean vocals I was not a fan of on the recording I listened too though.

After soundcheck, The Groove Lounge was packed up pretty tightly, and the band unfortunately didn’t have enough time to set up their keyboard, so their keyboard player and clean vocalist Kyle Pavone took the stage as the bands second frontman along the lead vocalist Dave Stephens. I have never seen WCAR before this show, but from what I gathered from other show goers, this nights paticular lineup which featured Kyle as a second frontman was actually a very nice change. He was a very energetic and engaging fellow on stage, hanging upside down from the rafters, crowd surfing, and literally using every moment he wasn’t singing to hop around and touch the crowd. Everyone in this band was very energetic while playing some considerably intense music, especially drummer Eric Choi, who was arguably the most seasoned percussionist at the entire show. This dude was literally shredding his drum kit, and having a great time while doing so.

We Came as Romans is Dave Stephens on Vocals, Kyle Pavone on Synth and Vocals, Andy Glass on Bass and Backup Vocals, Joshua Moore and Lou Cutton on Guitar, and Eric Choi on Drums.

Signed to Equal Vision Records, We Came as Romans are the headliners of the We are not Meaningless Tour, and at least in Oshawa, were the most anticipated band on the bill. The crowd can attest to that, as members of the audience were literally falling onto the small stage. I started off in the very front, and quickly ended up at the left side, so I eventually just joined my girlfriend and Francis Allard of promos4awareness.com in the “VIP” section along with familiar faces from Know Where You Stand and Four Letter Lie. It was awesome to see the crowd, the band and the stage itself from this view, because I caught some things I wouldn’t have otherwise; Such as people singing every single word of the set, bassist Andy Glass hitting his bass on the celing of The Groove Lounge, and second vocalist Kyle Pavone being pulled into the crowd like it was some sort of unrelenting Oshawa monster.

Speaking of the crowd though, the floor of The Groove Lounge was literally rumbling like it was going to cave in. The stage was vibrating relentlessly, and there were defintely some points of this show where I thought we would all fall into Le Skratch and die.

It looked like WCAR had some slight technical difficulty with their samples, but that is a small portion of their music in the first place from what I heard so it didn’t really effect their performance one bit. Lou Cutton seemed to be having some problems with his patch chord at one point aswell, but he was helped out by fellow tour mates from Four Letter Lie and what I think was WCAR roadies.

I did find the clean vocals to be a little weak live, but everything else was really top notch, and it was a real honour to see this band, and every other band on the bill for that matter.

Oh yeah, Oshawa girls; If you’re going to try and get free shirts from bands, you might want to put out instead of offering yourselves as models, jus sayin’

Congratulations to Revelation Entertainment and Unreal promotions for putting on such an amazing show. Its companies like these that bring life to an other wise dismal music scene, and give kids something to look forward to throughout their week. I am personally excited for the next show at The Groove Lounge, and what bands these two booking titans will grab next. Also I would like to extend a personal shoutout to Francis Allard of promos4awareness for taking some AMAZING shots of this show, I will post the link to his inspiring website below.

You can check out all of the bands listed above @

http://www.myspace.com/counterparts
http://www.myspace.com/thereforeiam
http://www.myspace.com/kingdoms
http://www.myspace.com/fourletterlie
http://www.myspace.com/wecameasromans
http://www.promos4awareness.com

Look forward to the review of We Came as Romans CD; To Plant a Seed coming very soon!

-Andy