Instead of doing a blog on each set of the bands for this tour, i’ll just write up one giant blog. Last year, the Queers played Cafe Metropolis in Wilkes-Barre, PA. This year, they came back with the rest of the bands from the Asian Man Records tour. The other bands on the tour included Kepi Ghoulie from the Groovie Ghoulies, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Bomb The Music Industry and Lemuria.

Kepi Ghoulie started the show at 8pm and played an acoustic set. I never saw Kepi or the Groovie Ghoulies before but I’ve been a fan of Groovie Ghoulies for a few years. Kepi warmed up the packed crowd with lots of clapping. He didn’t have a drummer so he needed the crowd to clap for him. I recognized one or two songs that he played and those were Groovie Ghoulies songs (”She’s My Vampire Girl” “Chupacabras”). He finished his set with a cover of Billy Bragg’s “A New England” and that sounded great!

The next band up was Andrew Jackson Jihad and they were clearly a crowd favorite. From what it sounded like, fans drove from far away just to see them. The band consisted of 2 guys playing acoustically. One guy played the upright bass and the other played acoustic guitar. If there is one band they remind me of is Against Me. The singer has a similar singing style but the band has a more raw, folk punk sound than Against Me does. It’s almost like a punk rock campfire music. I’m not sure what songs they sang but I’m sure it’s off their records “People Who Can Eat People Are the Luckiest People in the World” and “Only God Can Judge Me.” I originally didn’t really like Andrew Jackson Jihad on CD when I reviewed it but their live show is really great. It’s great because the crowd is singing along and just making the show fun to watch. So I might have to go back to their album and see if I like it this time. The band had a blast playing that show though and said it was the best show to date.

Bomb the Music Industry were up next but I think they should have played second to last. They brought the punk rock & ska punk that the kids wanted to hear. They got the crowd dancing, crowd surfing, and just got them to go crazy. I never heard of the band before but was impressed with their chaotic live show. Towards the end of their set, the singer/guitarist was crowd surfing the crowd and playing his guitar. I was in a great spot and managed to get 2 awesome photos above. Thankfully I didn’t put my camera away yet and kept it out the entire show.

After BTMI, Buffalo NY’s Lemuria were up next. No offense to the band, but they should have went on second before Andrew Jackson Jihad and Bomb the Music Industry. No one was really digging their music that much, and kids wanted to hear them play fast songs. Which wasn’t really their style, it was more of an indie rock/post-punk style. I didn’t mind a few songs but I didn’t like them as much as the other bands.

The last band of the evening were the Queers, the band I was there to see. They ended up playing a lot of the same songs as last year, including a Screeching Weasel cover (”Cindy’s on a Methadone”) and a Ramones cover (”Sheena is a Punk Rocker”). They were still great though and barely stopped to take a breather and talk to the crowd. Joe Queer and the other two guys were just plowing through all the classics like “No Tit,” “Love Love Love,” “Punk Rock Girls” “Monster Zero,” “Kicked Out of the Webelos,” “My Old Man’s a Fatso” and “I Can’t Stop Farting.”

Like Ben Weasel & Owen Murphy said on one of their latest podcast on Weasel Radio, Joe King needs to start playing some of the pop songs more. But Joe’s defense is that the kids aren’t there for those songs and want to hear all the 80s stuff. I know I would love to hear all the pop songs, as well as some newer stuff from Munki Brain, Punk Rock Confidential, and Pleasant Screams. Towards the end of their set, Kepi Ghoulie came on stage and performed with the band. They came back with a quick encore and played “Ursala Finally Has Tits” and “This Place Sucks” (again).

Shooting this show was pretty hard because the club is so dark. Plus I didn’t want to leave the chair I was standing on since the club was packed. Plus i’m a chicken shit and don’t want to get in the middle of a pit and get my camera ruined. I started off the night with not using flash but I just had to use flash when it called for it. I definitely needed it to shoot the crowd moshing and crowd surfing. For most of the photos, I went with black & white because I just liked the way it looked and reminded me of the old school punk rock photos from the 80s. The show definitely reminded me of an 80s punk show, well minus stage diving. Here’s some more photos from the night:

To see all the photos, click the links below:
The Queers
Lemuria
Bomb the Music Industry
Andrew Jackson Jihad
Kepi Ghoulie

Tags: andrew jackson jihad, asian man records, bomb the music industry, cafe metropolis, crowd shots, crowd surfing, kepi ghoulie, lemuria, mosh pits, pa, punk rock, the queers, wilkes-barre

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under Concert Photography, Photography . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.