Turnstile: Stubb's Amphitheater: May 6, 2022

I was really looking forward to this show, and for the most part it provided everything I needed from it.  If you don't know Turnstile, I'm not terribly surprised, as they are kind of in a niche right now as rock continues to contract away from the mainstream.  But they are very hot among the rock/punk/hardcore folks, and this show was sold out in a heartbeat.

The key thing here is that their new album is amazing.  Just a perfect blast of anger and catchy guitar riffs and joyous singing.  It's like if Weezer or Fall Out Boy was a lot more angry and loud.  And so I felt exceedingly out of place in the crowd - taller and older and significantly less pierced and tattooed than everyone else there.  But the show freaking jammed.  Just loud and fun and exuberant.  And hot and humid and freaking packed with humans.  The one plus about this being an all ages show though?  There must have been a lot of 11pm curfews because the floor cleared out around 10:30 and gave me more room to not get bounced around.

There were so many pits at first, and then a big ass one opened in the middle of the main section in front of the sound stage.  I was about four people outside of it, and was glad for that buffer because I still had to hold my ground for the first few songs.  Much more violent than you see in that video up above of Lolla Brazil or something.  And while I didn't get fully engulfed there, I was close enough so that my slight pogo-ing and fist pumping looked to be a part of the melee.

Pretty sure they played every song from Glow On, and each one was rad.  "TLC," "Blackout," "Mystery," "Don't Play," or "Holiday," they all jammed.  But then the weird moment of the night was when they came out for their encore, and just fired right back in to "Mystery," as though we had not just heard that same song 30 minutes before.  It ruled, yet again, but it was really odd that they hadn't planned an encore song and held one back for that moment.  Great show though.  Was hoping they'd be coming to ACL.

[oh, and I forgot to mention, I saw two of the opening acts.  I don't understand, in the slightest, what the word "hardcore" even means when it comes to musical genre.  Ceremony was kinda awesome, but it also felt like I was watching a disco and new wave band fronted by Henry Rollins.  The other one, Citizen, also vascilated between screaming, breakneck punk and new wave 80's sounds.  Very confusing...but fun!]