Hardcore legends Sick of It All came through Spartanburg last night with Iron Reagan and a band called Rat Poison.
Things didn’t get off to a great start, doors were at 6 so I showed up a bit after 7 but still had to wait until 8:30 for the first band to start. No one likes punk time, a more accurate start time would be cool.
Things got better once the show actually started though. I was completely unfamiliar with Rat Poison and basically still am. Googling Rat Poison, even Rat Poison band, just gives you links to rat poisons. They were fine for an opener, the kind of hardcore band I’ve seen about a 1000 times. Reminded me of Merauder with more singing.
Iron Reagan was up next. They’re the band consisting of a couple of Municipal Waste members and the old (and awesome) drummer from Darkest Hour. This was my third time seeing them. The first was opening for Terrorizer and then once headlining where they played maybe 30 minuets, probably less. I like them but wouldn’t have come to see them as a headliner again because of that experience. This time as an opener they played longer, about 45 minuets. The venue seemed to have trouble getting their logo on the projection screen that was connected to a computer. You could see everything they were doing on the computer on the screens, a bit distracting, but they finally went with a looped video of Axl Rose dancing very badly. This stalled after a few songs and IR singer Tony Foresta told them to just play clips from the movie Friday, which they did. Iron Reagan then blasted through many of their short songs and got the crowd active and circle pitting. They threw in covers of Cannibal Corpse and Cro-Mags as well.
Sick of It All was next and played songs from all across their three decade plus long career. I haven’t kept up with a lot of their new stuff but the old favorites like Scratch the Surface, It’s Clobberin Time, Step Down, Take the Night Off, Injustice System, and World Full of Hate were there. I do wish they’d played Just Look Around and Potential For a Fall but with that long of a career to draw from there are bound to be things dropped from the set list. You’d never guess how old these guys are with the energy they had on stage. Frontman Lou Koller was having a good time and was very positive, thanking everyone for their support over the years. There was lots of people moving and singing along and SOIA still do the wall of death, which they invented long before Lamb of God started doing it at their shows. There were even some stage dives, good for a crowd of mostly old dudes, I personally have retired from stage dives but cool to see. This was definitely the most fun crowd I’ve been a part of at a show since I moved here. Worth the wait through punk time.
Entreaty 