Live review: Thursday live at Starland Ballroom

Sayreville, NJ – 30 Sep 2023

“All those nights in the basement the kids are still screaming, On and on and on and on”

Twenty years is a long time ago, but not so long that the things we loved faded from our memories.  Twenty years ago, I saw Thursday celebrate the release of War All The Time.  They toured with Thrice and Coheed and Cambria and my girlfriend at the time, now wife, and I made our way to the release tour.  Tonight, they celebrated the anniversary by playing the album in full.  Twenty years ago, I chose team Sparta in the At The Drive In divorce.  My girlfriend at the time, now wife, and I caught the band touring the release cycle of Wiretap Scars.  Tonight, they celebrated the anniversary by playing the album in full (or at least they planned to). Twenty years ago, the Long Island hardcore scene was thriving.  Tonight, Koyo proved the Strong Island locale was still pumping out killer melodic hardcore acts. Twenty years ago, Cursive released the Ugly Organ, ten years later my wife and I named our youngest daughter after the penultimate track.  Tonight, frontman Tim Kasher didn’t play “Sierra” but he did perform and I got to be there.  For this one night at Starland Ballroom, the spirit of 2003 returned.   

With only a gorgeous BC Rich Warlock borrowed from Steve Pedulla and a microphone Tim Kasher took to the stage, filling the empty space with self-deprecating humor and his beautiful lyrics. Despite being the opener and having the shortest setlist of the evening, Kasher managed to display his impressive oeuvre, opening with “On My Knees” off last year’s amazing solo record; Middling Age before performing Cursive’s “Caveman” and “I Couldn’t Love You” and “Friction!,” a rarely played classic off The Good Life’s Lovers Need Lawyers EP before closing with another solo track, “No Fireworks.”  With such a litany of well-loved songs, it is a shame Kasher had such a short set, and I certainly do wish we had more time with him and his sardonic lyrics, but there was no fat to trim in the next 3 performances.

One day after releasing their debut full-length Would You Miss It, Long Island’s Koyo stormed the stage.  A throwback to the early 00’s LIHC sound and style, the quintet were better than impressive.  Most of the crowd seemed, like myself, unfamiliar with a lot of the new tracks, but the small crew of faces familiar did a hell of a job carrying the energy while 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.

Sparta took to the stage and knocked it out of the park as they kicked off their Wiretap Scars anniversary set with fan-favorite “Cut Your Ribbon”. The El Paso trio dialed up the passion and the crowd converted it into kinetic release. Jim Ward and company showed why Sparta has remained such a beloved act for 20 years. The notes and lyrics exploded from the trio throughout a setlist devoid of any filler. Sparta doesn’t need to fill in silence with stage banter and anecdotes because they are too busy slicing their way through their impressive debut… well until tragedy struck.  

The set unfortunately had a major snag slightly after the midway as Jim Ward held his guitar in a one-handed piece of showmanship where the guitar slipped and crashed off the stage and onto the venue floor.  The Texans tried to play it off, but the guitar was no longer working as it should and a backup didn’t suffice.  Time constraints led to a few tracks being cut out of the set, and for lesser artists this may have been enough to shut the whole evening down.

But this isn’t a lesser artist; This is Sparta (its hacky I know, but I just couldn’t resist).  Like the 300 at Thermopylae, the 3 at Sayreville battled back against nearly insurmountable odds and created something of legend as Ward took the opportunity to uplift and motivate the crowd. While I was a bit too enthralled to record the direct quote, I’ll paraphrase how Ward spoke to those of us in attendance and the PMA he displayed despite the busted guitar.  “You are allowed to be unhappy with today.  You are allowed to be unhappy with tomorrow. Its OK, life is fucking hard… but it doesn’t mean that it owns you. You’re gonna be alright.” With that simple reminder that every day on this side of the grass is better than the alternative, Ward changed the flow of the evening back to the positive wave we had all been surfing.  As Sparta closed out their set, Ward threw his guitar to the ground, picked it up and threw it again for good measure while bassist Matt Miller chose to join in on the fun and threw his bass to the stage floor in a show of solidarity.

  

20 years later the album title of War All The Time has proven sadly prophetic.  While we watch the world disintegrate further and further into polarizing political identities we really do spend all of our lives in this ideological tug of war. And those real-life battles shone throughout the band’s time on stage.  Immediately upon taking the stage at Starland, Thursday’s emotions and ecstasy were palpable.  The band blazed through “For the Workforce, Drowning,” twenty years later, still spot-on in the way the late-stage capitalism feeds into a life of servitude we can never dig ourselves out of.  

It was a far cry from the near empty Wayne Firehouse where I’d first seen them.  The energy was through the roof, as Geoff Rickley and his crew turned the packed venue into an epic New Brunswick basement show.  Performing the post-hardcore masterpiece, Thursday had all of the crowd in the palm of its hand before they hit a poignant note with “Jet Black New Year.”  

Following the last few years, being able to shout along to lines like “How long can we take this chance not to celebrate,” felt like so much more than your average heartfelt sing along.  It was a release, a signal that this is what we need, a collection of kids in their 30s and 40s remembering why they loved this scene so hard and how the experience filled a void that had been growing exponentially. “Jet Black New Year,” the track that was written for but not released on War All The Time closed out the proper set.

With a crowd full of sweat and solidarity and the existential fulfillment that can only be found in the energy of a live performance, the band returned for a five-song encore.  Closing out with the one-two punch of “Cross Out The Eyes” and “Understanding In A Car Crash”  Thursday brought everything around full circle for those of us who have been doing this for the last 25 years and you could see it in the conversations and new friendships formed in the pit.  Thursday has always been a beacon for this community, especially in NJ and its a delight to see that hasn’t changed in the last few years.  If Thursday originally connected with my feeling of being lost in the wake of Columbine, 9/11, fake wars and economic collapse their shows and the accords struck in their crowds helped me feel a part of something.  Tonight, they reconnected and reignited those feelings despite the pestilence, treason and commonality of school shootings we’ve lived through; a triumph in spite of the trials and tribulations of the 2020s.