Wednesday night, Quicksand and Bane made a stop here in Chicago on their current tour to play a show at Bottom Lounge.
Soul Blind was the opening band. This New York band played an interesting mix of metal/post-hardcore, grunge, and a bit of shoegaze. The styles mixed together better than you may initially think. When the vocals were more melodic was far more interesting than when they were growling. While nothing about them grabbed me enough to want to buy their records, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a half hour or so watching them perform.
Hailing from a city in MA that few people can pronounce properly (Worcester), hardcore veterans, Bane, were up next. They had a lot of fans in the audience and the band played with a lot of energy and power. Their brand of hardcore is pretty familiar with the metal laced guitar riffs and the growled/yelling vocals. The singer spent a considerable amount of time down inside the barricade getting next to the crowd and having them sing for him. This is the wresting equivalent of a “rest hold” that you do when you’re blown up and need to catch your breath. The crowd loved it and was happy to participate. The biggest negative about their performance was the pleading to the crowd to “start a pit, start a pit”. This isn’t the 1990s anymore, much of your audience is middle aged and maybe not into playing human bumper cars anymore and don’t know karate. Be happy that they are there watching you play and shouting along to the songs, they don’t need to play tackle football with each other to validate you. That kind of bush league behavior is more akin to some new band and a veteran band like this should know better and have more confidence in their own performance. If you are a fan of this band, their performance was really good in spite of that and the amount of energy the musicians have in their playing is pretty impressive.
Quicksand closed the night and man did they deliver. Of the few times I’ve witnessed them play, this time out was easily their best outing in terms of sound and performance. This trio really has a unique sound and man do they also pack a punch. Their songs have such interesting structures and guitar sounds, and the songs are tuneful and melodic, yet still can knock you on. your ass.
The band opened with “Supercollider” from their new album, Bring On The Psychics and that is one of the many standouts on the record. What was immediately evident was the crowd was immediately receptive to them opening with new material, and the smiles on all the band members faces while they were performing. It wasn’t just for that song, the band smiled through the entire set and you can tell it was completely genuine that they simply enjoy being on stage playing their music for a crowd of people. Seeing that was infectious, and somehow added another layer of enjoyment to what was a rock solid set.
They played nearly their entire new album, but also sprinkled in some older favorites like “Landmine Spring”, “Dine” Alone”, and the show closer, “Delusional”. It was an amazing performance coming hot on the heels of a really good new album and if you are able to catch Quicksand on this tour, do not miss them!
