by photojournalist Dan Fernandez
On Friday night, The BayCare Sound turned into a gathering for multiple generations of punk and pop punk fans as Teen Mortgage, Alkaline Trio, and Rise Against delivered a bill built around a scene known for espousing a sense of urgency and conviction in their sound. One thing was for glaringly certain, the counterculture that lifted these bands to the top of an early 2000’s resurging punk scene seems to be making a comeback yet again and I could not be happier to see it.
Teen Mortgage, the Washington, D.C. based duo, opened the breezy evening bringing tunes that resonated far larger than its two-person lineup. With their sound mixing garage punk and politically pointed material. The group’s performance rewarded the early arrivals and set an appropriately charged tone for the evening.
Alkaline Trio followed with the night’s more brooding shade of melody. Their songs managed to balance more sentimental lyrics with the snap and momentum of the pop-punk that they are known for. The bands set bridged nostalgia and the present beyond well enough to feed their familiar fans, while remaining magnetic enough to win over any newcomers.
For the second time in the past year, I have had the pleasure of covering Rise Against as they brought their brand of hardcore, alternative and punk rock to the stage with a relentlessness that only they could continually meet. Seriously, I have seen Rise Against probably 10 or more times since 2004, and I think that they have gotten more energetic with each show. Their lyrical barrage and immediacy of their stage presence thoroughly filled the venue, leaving concertgoers belting the bands words right back to front man Tim Mcllrath. One couldn’t help but feel that every chorus, every verse, every melody held something of importance at stake for someone in that crowd.
The highlight of the set was also a metaphor for the community in which punk rock was built on with Tim coming down from the stage to perform while standing atop the railing, supported by the clutched hands of the fans in the crowd. Unity, acceptance and the questioning of the status quo are long running themes in the punk community. With those themes in mind, I am going to conclude with the words of another group of pioneers from the 2000’s punk rock resurgence, Against Me!, who were played via the loudspeaker between sets on multiple instances. “We’d do it all because we have to, not because we know why; Beyond a gender, race and class, we could find what really holds us back; Let’s make everybody sing; That they are the beginning and ending of everything; And we all are stronger: Than anything they taught us that we should fear.” Rise Against truly represented those values and did those lyrics proud on Friday night.
