The universe has a funny way of saying thanks. When a band like Glassjaw plays a venue like El Rey, forces greater than man combine to stall, detract, and otherwise make difficult the ability to catch such a momentous show. Pouring rain, lack of parking, sold out tickets, and LA traffic could not keep the El Rey from being completely absorbed by the black hole of hardcore. When the soaked outsiders finally shuffled their way into the front doors, a superbly sounding show with raucous intent awaited them.
Openers Tidal Arms have obviously studied The Book of Trios and they skipped the Blink-182 and Chevelle chapters and went straight to Motorhead and Primus. They don’t resemble any of those bands sonically, but they do have the proper equilateral positioning on stage and rock quite hard. Most of their best riffs would make Mastodon proud, but the aggressive strumming and pounding kick drum dominated the audience. After their set, a dozen or so people came by the sound booth to see who just blew their mind. That’s a damn good sign for a young band.
These People were noticeably stiff in their LA debut, as fellow Long Island natives Glassjaw tapped them to be their lead-in band in front of a packed crowd maybe a bit too early in their career. Their spacey jamrock worked for the most part, especially given the five-piece had someone solely dedicated to bongos and other manual percussion. Most sets start slow, but this one crawled as the crowd was willing to be entertained, but couldn’t find a hook or groove to jump on. The audience warmed up by the end of their performance, and even although it took their final song to win everyone over, they still emerged victorious and that is what it is all about.
The crowd was ready for a revolution before Daryl Palumbo and Glassjaw hit the stage. Within one word exiting Palumbo’s mouth, a circle pit started and three people were crowd surfing. It was an explosion of kinetic energy released by some that have been waiting for this moment their entire lives. The vocalist was pitch-perfect in recreating the screams, bellows, and squeals that have made the band so popular. Guitarist Justin Beck gave each song an extra lick or two while he held his axe high and tight like an assault weapon.
Over 20 songs from Glassjaw gave diehards plenty to be happy about, but even still a few favorites were missing (Ry Ry’s Song, Piano) to some dismay. In fact, almost all of Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence was ignored, with the band focused more on their most recent and upcoming releases. Their encore was entirely comprised of the Coloring Book EP and some fans started drifting through the exits once they got the hint that nothing “classic” would be coming from the amps any longer. The set list was a bit of a disappointment, but after a 90 minute performance with nearly two dozen songs, fans of Glassjaw that have never seen them live or haven’t seen in them in a very long time had plenty to be pleased about.
Their success is partly attributed to that unpredictable victory that comes with great songwriting: creating the soundtrack to people’s lives. While helping people through their troubles and providing a musical safety to explain it to them, Glassjaw have managed to go from upstart rebels to ahead-of-their-time prophets to worshipped journeymen. This show solidified the band's footing in modern music while also showing fans what could have, should have, and would have happened had an entirely healthy and harmonious band stuck together. For the first time in years, Glassjaw was able to give the show that their fans have been imagining when they close their eyes and listen to their seminal classics.
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