Tragedy, Lebanon, Iron Lung, Extortion – 30/01/09 – Mississippi Pizza – Portland

I’ll shit you not, I went to this one to see Tragedy. How many people have the chance to see Tragedy play in a small pizza place! Quite a lot, if you live in Portland I guess but if you’re from Europe it’s definitely something new. Anyway, the small show room was quickly filled with about 100 or so punks and the show started at around 9.30.

First band to play was Lebanon, a rather new band from Portland with members of Hellshock (and ex-From Ashes Rise) which often share the stage with Tragedy. I wasn’t surprised and neither disappointed by their set. They play of course hardcore punk, but they’re not another Tragedy clone in any way, and I would say they sound kinda like Hellshock but not as metallic. I don’t know if they’ll have a record out anytime soon but if they do I’m definitely getting it.

Next one, oh yes, Tragedy! No introductions here, you should all know them already. Finally, after years of waiting, it was about time to see them live and it was amazing. The band was highly energetic and powerful with lots of fists thrown in the air and so was the crowd. Unfortunately they had some problems like electroshocking microphones, no vocals heard on the first track, some speaker wasn’t working and made the band stop to figure it out. But still, what a fucking show!!!

Next one was Extortion, coming from Australia to play their small set of powerviolence. Usually I can’t stand of powerviolence or fastcore but these guys weren’t bad. The crowd seemed to like them a lot so it’s all good.

Finally, Iron Lung, a duet band (guitar and drums) from Seattle. I guess you can put them under the powerviolence genre but they mix so many more hardcore sub-genres which makes them so unique. They mix ultra fast and slower parts in the most powerful way and they definitely won me and the rest of the crowd.