New York City – 8 March 2023
The night the Just Like Home Tour came home
Bayside may never have hit it big with mainstream radio success, but they have earned an ever-growing omni-present and fervently loyal fan base that proudly calls itself a cult, always willing to follow Bayside’s lyrical walk to hell and back, and it is the sets like this that form the unbreakable bond. For many of us, as the tour name suggests, seeing Bayside is safe and familiar; it feels just like home.
That feeling was reciprocated by the band, all New York based, performing to local fans and friends. The familiarity was boosted by Le Poisson Rouge. Of the 20-some-odd times I’ve seen the New Yorkers, this is the most intimate stage since the release of Sirens and Condolensces in 2004. Most of us here tonight never met, most of us never spoke, never will… but for a few hours on Wednesday night in March, we all became family (which really is a pretty cult-ish thing to say now that I see it on paper).
First to jump on Le Poisson Rouge’s stage was Stony Brook, Long Island’s Koyo. A throwback to the early 00’s LIHC sound and style, the quintet were better than impressive. Most of the crowd seemed, like myself, unaware of the five-piece, but the small crew of faces familiar to Koyo did a hell of a job carrying the energy until the rest of us caught on.
Koyo blew many of us away with a stark reminder of the days when we’d drive out to the Downtown in Farmingdale. The days when Long Island Hardcore was leaving venues like Ground Zero and taking over the bigger venues across the country. The days Koyo is about to begin living firsthand thanks to their tremendous chops and dedication to a great time.
The Brooklyn by way of Long Island outfit, I Am The Avalanche, took the stage next earning a huge pop from the crowd. Frontman Vinnie Caruana commanded the stage and proved why even after all these years, the band remains at great heights within the scene. Sure some may compare IATA to his previous outfit The Movielife or the recently formed Constant Elevation. That’s the curse of being talented enough to lead multiple popular acts, but the people making comparisons are doing it all wrong. I Am The Avalanche doesn’t need to be better or sound like either of those bands, because on its own legs IATA have earned their longevity.
The indie-hardcore amalgamation got those of us there to immediately start moving around and not stop opening with “I Took A Beating and “Holy Fuck” to really kick things off on a strong note. Caruana jumped around the stage, mic in hand, getting the crowd more and more involved as the band showed off their discography with hits like “Amsterdam,” “Green Eyes” and the just-released “Honey Bee.” To close off the set the band built a fever pitch with obligatory closer “Brooklyn Dodgers.”
With a halo formed by the back-lit spotlights, Anthony Ranieri and Bayside dropped the hammer with a set list full of fan favorites spanning their two-decade long career. Opening with a series of fan favorites such as “Big Cheese,” “The Walking Wounded” (for which Caruana came outand “Sick Sick Sick” Bayside buckled down with emotional morbidity swaddled in their special blend of rock and had a crowd full of strained voices being lost and long-absent inner-peace being found.
Bayside owned the room and had the endorphins pulsing no matter if they were burning their way through the month old single “How to Ruin Everything (Patience)” or “Masterpiece” the lead single off their 2004 debut full-length Sirens and Condolences, and even tossing in “Megan” a Smoking Popes cover.
The set closed out with little chatter as the band ripped into some of their most popular tracks off a variety of albums. They played “Duality” from 2007’s The Walking Wounded, 2015’s “Hate Me” off Cult before visiting the always popular self-titled album from 2005 with “Blame It On Bad Luck” and closer “Montauk.”
At this point the set had already gone beyond an hour and nobody would’ve blamed Bayside for calling it a night, nobody except perhaps Bayside, who were determined to make tonight one of the best shows of the year. They came back with a killer encore starting off with “Don’t Call Me Peanut” and “Go To Hell” before tearing the roof off with a bombastic performance of “Devotion and Desire,” a song whose title spoke volumes for the energy in that room for the band’s top notch set.
After all was said and done, the crowd was spent, and all three bands gave everything they had. I can easily, and without question, recommend this tour and every opportunity to catch these acts, to every one of us who miss the energy and heart that carried our scene in the mid-00s. Its alive and well and was pumping lifeblood through Le Poisson Rouge tonight.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
