Face to Face / Strung Out at the Trocadero

The drunks were at the bar; the punks were in the pit. Between the two there was a clear divide in energy levels at the Face to Face/Strung Out show Sat., May 21 at Philadelphia’s Trocadero. Kids on the floor maintained a constantly swirling mass for both bands without tiring (and surprisingly few fights). The old heads up at the balcony drank their drinks and took some abuse from the bands. There wasn’t any real hostility, though, just a kinship formed over fast beats and snotty vocals.

After opening sets from the Darlings (SoCal pop-punk) and the regrettably named Cerebral Ballzy (thrash punk), Strung Out emerged to big applause and an even bigger mosh pit. While the band has tweaked its sound over the years, the tunes segued nicely into each other as guitarists Jake Kiley and Rob Ramos peeled off solo after solo. Frontman Jason Cruz frequently interacted with the crowd during and between songs, offering high fives and fist bumps while occasionally tweaking the adults at the bar. After a tight 45-minute set, the band bowed out to make room for the night’s main event, Face to Face.

While Face to Face has officially been reunited since 2008, 2011 feels like their true comeback. Their new, pretty good album Laugh Now… Laugh Later just dropped. More importantly, their promotional tour for the record boasts the best Face to Face set I have ever seen.

I’m not going to pretend to be an old vintage punker, but I did catch the band twice before their break-up, and while both performances were exemplary, tonight had a raw energy and enthusiasm that surpassed previous stops in Philly. Maybe it was the rambunctious crowd. Maybe it was the fact that the returning members look exactly the same (Well, Trever Keith and Scott Shiflett anyway. Drummer Danny Thompson is new and I don’t know who the second guitarist was, but he wasn’t Chad Yaro). Or maybe it was just a really, really well-picked setlist.

Tonight, the band played “the hits.” That means a lot of stuff off the first three records, plus “Bill of Goods” from How to Ruin Everything. Four tracks from Laugh Now were shown off (Set opener “Should Anything Go Wrong,” plus “It’s Not All About You,” “Bombs Away” and “All For Nothing”), and they sound much better in a faster, live setting. I’m one of the few who actually loves the group’s experimental Ignorance is Bliss record, but I didn’t mind seeing it passed over, along with Reactionary, in favor of tracks like “Won’t Lie Down,” “A-OK” and “Walk Away.”

The band kicked things off with new tune “Should Anything Go Wrong” and the crowd erupted. They didn’t quite know the words yet, but they sure kept time. Then Keith counted into Don’t Turn Away’s “You’ve Done Nothing,” and the audience sure knew the words to that one. The show seemed to deal out songs by period. A Face to Face suite yielded “Ordinary,” “Walk the Walk,” “Won’t Lie Down” and a particularly roaring version of “Blind,” for example. Big Choice, of course, got the biggest reaction, with songs like “Disconnected” and “Big Choice” setting off the crowd.

Keith took the time to chide the drunks, galvanizing them to a minimal amount of exercise by standing up for the entirety of “Bill of Goods.” But after an hour-long performance plus a two-song encore, Face to Face left the stage to applause from everyone in attendance. Fans were promised another show within a year, plus they scored Laugh Now for free if they bought anything at the merch table. All kidding aside, Keith and co. were good to Philadelphia.

Strung Out - 'Painkillers and Prototypes'

While they’ve been busy working on their upcoming eighth studio album and breaking their bones by rocking too hard, the fellas in melodic hardcore outfit Strung Out also found the time to crank out a second rarities compilation, this month’s Prototypes and Painkillers. At 25 tracks, it’s packed with demos, alternate takes, comp tracks, covers, and even a few rarities. The collection proves to be eclectic, going from metal to pop punk with little notice. And while the sequencing is sometimes jarring – that cover of Descendents’ “I’m Not a Loser” never sounds right sandwiched between the ever so slightly harder-edged “Novacain” and “Novella” – it ultimately just proves just how far Strung Out’s grasp extends. If you like pop punk, metal, hardcore, and a fusion of any of the three, you’ll find something to love here.

Prototypes and Painkillers ignores chronology in favor of some semblance of a rise and fall motion, which applies as much to the audio quality as it does to the playing style. For the most part, though, the songs are unified by thundering drums and crunchy riffs. There are a slew of comp tracks to choose from – Beyond Cyberpunk’s “Betrayal,” Short Music for Short People’s “Klawsterfobia,” and “Lost Motel” from a Fat Club seven-inch. Of particular note is a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon.” It starts out pretty straight, but quickly morphs into a punk rock stomper before adding a late game soft jazz break. It’s an abrupt shift that makes the song all the better.

The collection cheats a little by padding itself with demos and early versions of previously released material, though. It seems unlikely that a devoted Strung Out fan would need a rough cut of “Mad Mad World” or “Just Like Me.” But, these demos are mostly near the end. They don’t interrupt the listening experience whatsoever; think of ‘em as a bonus greatest hits sneak peak. Newcomers get a peak at other Strung Out albums and Protypes and Painkillers gets to stay relevant after they buy Twisted By Design.

For the devotees, there are some previously unreleased tunes as well. Aside from that Descendents cover, “Pleather,” “Sinner or Coward?,” “Night of the Necro,” and “Forever is Today,” while bootlegged, have never had an official release until now. Throw in the bevy of non-album tracks like “Your Worst Mistake” and that no-seriously-this-rules version of “Bark at the Moon,” and Prototypes and Painkillers is another successful release from Strung Out. It gets a bit long at 67 minutes, but that’s part of the album’s beauty – it represents so many different styles that it nearly demands you tear it apart and digest it track by track anyway. The new album will come when it does; Prototypes and Painkillers already marks 2009 as a strong year for Strung Out.