Thursday, April 02, 2009
Posted at
07:31
by
Carly Carioli
Without a doubt, the most fun we've ever had shooting video? No contest: CONVERGE, at the end of March, kicking off a short small-venue tour before hitting the studio to record their next album, throwing down at the International Community Church in Allston. It's easy to take halls like the ICC for granted, and since we don't stage-dive like we used to, we almost never make it over there. But christ, what a room: big open spaces, a powerful sound system (on this night, at least), minimal security-dude drama, all-ages, water for $1. (That last being a godsend, because 500 dudes in a room raises the temperature to an unholy 90+ degrees. Having been raised at the Channel, we firmly believe that intense body heat is part of the overall punk-rock package deal.) Chalk our enthusiasm up to our all-ages nostalgia, but we thought 500-seat halls for metal had vanished from the face of the earth. I have no idea why non-hardcore bands aren't begging to play this room. Who knows, maybe they are.
Converge, then: as usual, a force of nature. We stopped trying to come up with words for them a long time ago, which is why we're so psyched to present this audio/visual record: just fucking look at it, for fuck's sake. They played two new songs late in the set -- by which time our audio feed had mysteriously given out -- so we went with a recent milestone, an old favorite, and a bludgeoning good time. (As you'd expect, people spent the new songs listening rather than frantically screaming along, so the energy level went down a notch -- and anyway, you can find video of those songs elsewhere on the intertubes.)
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