North Penn YMCA "Music Fest" 5/31/03

This show was so fucking weird. This was a time in lansdale where not a whole lot of shows were going on in the borough. Most of the "old" lansdale bands had broken up or become inactive by this point. Most shows my bands played were in Doylestown or Delco at venues like Harrykats (home of the most indestructible wall ever). As for lansdale, what once was a stronghold of harder bands turned into more of a "music" scene. The group of bands made up of most of the kids in high school/just out of high school at this time were more indie sounding. Bands like Nexus, The Premier, No Outlet (who had been active since they/we were in middle school) and even Tally-Ho (probably the worst band to ever consider themselves good ever) were actively playing school battle of the bands and weird stuff like that. This generation of Lansdallions would produce kids like Dan Campbell, Matt Brasch and Nick Steinborn, all who have gone on to experience insurmountable success with their band the Wonder Years. I remember when the Wonder Years started (i want to say around 04?) and it was just a side project of The Premier. People like CJ Morgan and North Penn Homecoming King, Football team captain George Farrel would also come out of this batch of kids, and it's awesome to still see them playing in bands today. Crazy.

Another thing to note about this time period was that this was right around when Lansdale and Doylestown sort of grew out of the whole "let's hate each other for no reason" thing. Bands like Dead Again, Ellipsis, Kidnapping Lindbergh, Skeeter and some others were playing. Those kids would go on to do bands like Let Down, Mother of Mercy, Wrong Answer, CDC, Rock Bottom and several others. Realistically, this was an awesome time to be a hardcore/punk kid in the Philly suburbs, because shows were greatly integrated compared to years before. Unfortunately, this sort of open-mindedness has become diluted in many ways. Either way, a lot of great friends were made in this time period and that should never be taken for granted. My best friend in the entire world, John Bowes, would be introduced to me around this time as well, which is a whole other story all together.

ANYWAY, so this show was promoted by the Y as a teen band jam dance party type thing so I remember being slightly apprehensive about playing it. the Y had done shows randomly before this and would continue to do random shows to this day, almost always being handled by different people. Jason Fine, who once drummed for Nessiteras, Leavenworth, Cetus, DKD, Trace Fury and a few others, has a dad. his dad ran the sound at this show and did announcements and shit, it was funny. He is a pretty over-the-top guy that makes fun of everybody. So that was cool. There was an actual stage and small barrier (i think). The crazy thing about this show was the turnout. This show had at least 300 kids in attendance. which is crazy since i think Nutbox might've headlined. that or No Outlet. I don't fucking remember. Either way, a ton of kids poured into the Y's gym for this show and this was just when i started carrying around a donation jar for my reptile rescue. A guy i met that day through a mutual friend hyped it up and got money from all sorts of kids and shit. His name was Steve "Pollcat" Pollman and he remains a great friend to this day. Friends from central PA, jersey, Delaware and all over came out for this so that was really cool. Spoken Silence played this show with Andy Moholt singing and i remember he did a bunch of rolls and stuff on stage and that impressed me. I like acrobatics and shit. Leavenworth and Inane had recently released the split CD Dinosaur Eating Demon Monkey and the songs both bands played live from it always went over awesome. Inane had previously released a demo or two and leavenworth had put out our first DIY EP called The Modern Testament. Inane covered the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song at this show and everyone loved it. I'm pretty sure i used "OOGIE BOOGIE LANSDALE" as a mosh call at one point. I remember i wore a death threat shirt to this show and i somehow lost it at/after it. Barcode had Brendan Detweiler, who was Nutbox's official dancer. Did veronica coker play drums for them? i want to say she did. There was a couple almost fights during Leavenworth's set but all in all this was a chill show with a ton of kids. I would say we sold some splits but judging by the amount I have weighing down my snake tank lids i don't think we sold more than 4 of them, like ever. ha. I'm sure this show ended with a bunch of us going to Michael's and me eating and obnoxious amount of perogies while Little "mexico" Matt (i swear there's like 17 little matt's out there) told the tallest tales known to man. after that we undoubtedly went back to the leavenhouse and kicked it...hard. I went to Europe for the first time a day or two after this and i brought the spoken silence shirt that i bought from them at this show. I definitely was wearing it while on a tour of some church in Salzburg, Austria and i got kicked out of the church for sitting on the thing that Mozart's sister was baptized in. my life is stupid.