When I was 16 I was in a bad car accident. I was wearing my green Pennywise t-shirt with cut-off sleeves and the large red and white print logo on the front. My head smashed through the glass of the back window of the single-cab pickup truck when we flipped several times over the asphalt on that beautiful, sunny Florida day. I was with my best friend. Blood was steadily spilling from the five and-a-half inch laceration on the top of my head. I removed my shirt and used it to apply pressure to the wound to keep myself from bleeding out. Did that Pennywise shirt save my life? Maybe.
Pennywise was the very first (and most important) punk band I ever got into. Full Circle used to play on repeat in my portable CD player everywhere I went. Itâs one of those albums I couldnât ever purchase enough to show my appreciation for. Saturday night at Plaza Live was my first time seeing one of the greatest punk bands of all time perform a headlining set. It was everything I hoped for.
The Attack opened the show at the Plaza Live but were offstage once I made it inside (but Lindsay got some great pictures of them, see below). Tyler has been telling me about how âI needâ to see A Wilhelm Scream. Well, Iâve finally seen them now and despite being worth the wait, I shame myself for not having seen them sooner. Here’s a shitty video. (It’s dark because they didn’t want the lights turned up because they “didn’t want us to see their ugly faces.”)
A Wilhelm Scream are new school punks. They’ve been around since the mid-â90s and have caused quite a respectable stir over the past (almost-two) decades. Their intense live performance offers no mercy as they cut through track after track, keeping you guessing at which direction the song is going to go through various tempo and key changes. They maintain an overall theme: Loud, Fast, and Fun.
Anti-Flag spit energy in our faces and we spit it right back at them. Crunchy guitars, punk beats, and sing-alongs sprinkled with a bit of nostalgia sums their set up pretty well. At the end of it, they performed âDie for the Government,â and the drummer came down into the pit, cleared some space, and set up a bass drum, snare, and hi-hats on the floor. The bassist came down next with a mic and stood atop the bass drum as they finished the song out together in a sea of sweaty singers who nearly swallowed them.
Punk shows, good punk shows, are few and far between in Orlando. Throughout Pennywiseâs 19 song set, everything felt like home. I didnât mind the pungent body odor seeping out of those around me, nor the drinks being thrown from time to time, nor being shoved and pushed around repeatedly. As I wiped the sweat from my brow and yelled lyrics toward the stage, I realized that my middle finger reaching towards the air was somehow positive. Everything was exactly how it should have been and everyone was giving Pennywise the most respectable âfuck-youâ Iâve ever witnessed. The room was united.
Pennywise dedicated a portion of their machine gun set to crowd-pleasing cover songs: âNervous Breakdownâ by Black Flag, âMinor Threatâ by Minor Threat, and âYou Gotta Fight For Your Right To Partyâ by The Beastie Boys which ended with guitarist, Fletcher, interrupting the last line of lyrics,âYour mom busted in and said, ‘What’s that noise?’ Aw, mom you’re just jealous itâs the BeastieâŠâ with âFucking Pennywise!,â and then going into the 25-year-old classic song, âPennywise.â
âBro Hymnâ is one of my absolute favorite songs to have ever breached my ears (and I believe I speak for many with that statement). Itâs the song that inspired me to start playing drums. A song that I covered at birthday parties and house shows, outside in a shed, and inside in a camper trailer with the walls knocked out. That song has been with me through it fucking all. Singing every âWoahâ and word, along with every punk in that room was what I came for: inspiration. After all, we were all punks that night.
Sometimes I wonder why I didnât die that day I got into that car accident. Sometimes I can’t help but think âmaybe I did and this is all my âwaking life,ââ or some bullshit. But what if those were my last words; my last thoughts? What if my brain hemorrhaged after the ambulance doors closed and my pineal gland released a massive amount of DMT into my body? What if I never made it out of the wreckage? What if the 22 staples I received in my head were all a self-created illusion so I didn’t have to mentally leave this place? Or so I could see my mother again. Or so I could liveâŠ
All theories aside, Iâll take one from Pennywise: âLife is the most precious thing you can lose.â Thereâs never a promise for tomorrow, nor for five minutes from now. You canât predict when youâll check out so do your best, always. Fight till you die.
Pennywise Live Review by Mitch Foster.
Pennywise Live Photos by Lindsay Tompkins.
⌠SHOWS TO GO TO âŒ
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- The Commission Beer Chamber
- Kingfish Records (Clearwater)
- Nora's Sugar Shack!
- Park Ave CDs
- Montgomery Drive Presents
- RT-Art Printing
- The Mary Jane 'High-Quality' Art Gallery
- The Owl's Attic Vintage Shop
- Broken Strings Brewery
- American Combat Club
- Lazy Moon Pizza
- Ten10 Brewing
- Leguminati
- Mutiny Ocala
- The Tipsy Skipper
- Conrad's Beer Shanty
- AKT Shirt Printing
- Smartpunk Records & Shop
- No Clubs Presents
- DaddyKool Records
- Galactic G Skateshop