Last night I headed to Vineland, NJ to see my friend Edwin's band open for Nightmare of You at Hangar 84. After a cheesesteak at Donkey's Place around the corner, a guest and I braved the rain and headed back into the small but still practically empty venue to the sounds of an unidentified local opener that I hopefully won't be seeing again. We headed for the bleachers at the back to sit down for the show, a decision I will probably be repeating at Hangar 84 to avoid the awkward standing about between bands that invariably occurs at smaller shows at out-of-the-way venues.
After a set change, Swie Back took the stage, playing an assortment of their own material to a small crowd of their friends and the members of the other bands. Their sound is reminiscent of the latest mewithoutYou album (I later discovered the drummer takes lessons from mewithoutYou's drummer) with audible Brand New influences and possibly arena rock leanings (though that may have just been the boomy sound in a near-empty venue). They put on a decent show for such a young band, with only a few barely noticable mistakes that they dealt with professionally by simply continuing the set (not walking off early like the previous band).
Following Swie Back, the touring support acts began with Californian outfit Aushua, whose epic melodic rock sounded too big for such a small venue. Their polished tunes had few flaws-the only ones I noticed were some unfortunately dischordant notes from the keys/synth. Next to perform was Brooklyn singer-songwriter Brian Bonz, whose sarcastic musings were accompanied by his own acoustic guitar and instrumentation provided by various members of the other touring bands (he had already joined Aushua onstage to provide tambourine for one song). Seeming more comfortable than most, Bonz regaled the audience with stories about the tour and a brief freestyle rap.
Plushgun is one of the many bands incorporating electronic and dance elements into more traditional rock formats, and I must say does an unusually good job at it. The frontman is a bit less campy or over-the-top than many within this genre, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. I was excited to see them live following my post about $99 music videos, which contained a video of theirs that I thought was quite good, and they more than met my expectations. Unfortunately I had to leave before Nightmare of You played in order to make curfew back at my summer job in Maryland, but my guest and I both thoroughly enjoyed the show.
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