{"id":4535,"date":"2021-11-05T13:17:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T19:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/?p=4535"},"modified":"2021-11-05T14:09:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T20:09:42","slug":"concert-review-the-front-bottoms-at-mission-ballroom-10-11-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/2021\/11\/05\/concert-review-the-front-bottoms-at-mission-ballroom-10-11-21\/","title":{"rendered":"CONCERT REVIEW: The Front Bottoms at Mission Ballroom 10\/11\/21"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Henry Hodde<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Front Bottoms\u2019 performance at Mission Ballroom last Monday was a reminder that punk rock and roll is not dead. The genre is alive and well alright. It may not look the same as the days in which The Clash and The Ramones reigned supreme, nor does it sound like Metallica, or even Green Day. Nevertheless, fans of noise first and foremost ought not despair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Front Bottoms at Mission Ballroom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Front Bottoms are not a new band. Guitarist Brain Sella and childhood buddy Mathew Uychich began to write music together in 2007, adding Uychich\u2019s brother Brian to complete the original lineup. Sella and Mathew Uychich still form the heart of the New Jersey band, but on Thursday, the founding duo were complemented by Erik Kase Romero and Natalie Newbold. The next hour and a half quickly morphed into 90 minutes of exhilaration, energy, experimentation, happiness, and noise. The concert was easily the best I\u2019d attended live in recent memory.\u00a0 While this distinction doesn\u2019t really carry significant weight considering that I grew up in rural Middlebury, VT and spent my first year of college living through a pandemic, I have a feeling that it will take a while for another show to match this celebration of sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou Used to Say (Holy Fuck)\u201d set the tone for the concert, with a strong drumset backing a series of playful guitar riffs and a set of conversational based lyrics that embody any good Front Bottoms song. \u201cWest Virginia\u201d brought hard hitting head bangs, \u201cJerk\u201d crowd surfing and a sense of vulnerability through Sella\u2019s words. Then we were into the classics. \u201cTwin Size Mattress.\u201d \u201cMontgomery Forever.\u201d \u201cPeach.\u201d The songs that stole my heart- each one building the excitement, the energy, and the joy on the faces of those that populated the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sella belts out “You Used to Say (Holy Fuck)”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the randomness, the human in the lyrics. I remember sitting in my room at boarding school, trying to write an English essay when Sella\u2019s voice first reached my ears from my roommate\u2019s Iphone 8 speaker. I was struck by the abstract, the volatility, the repetition. Lyrics like \u201cthis is for the lions living in the wiry frames of my friends bodies,\u201d \u201cI avoid using traditional techniques,\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s snowing right now I wish it was summer\u201d all define The Front Bottoms. They might seem pointless, unimportant, childish even. But it\u2019s exactly this approach that makes the band relatable. It\u2019s what makes the band identifiable. It makes them relevant. As a 21 year old kid, I don\u2019t necessarily need wisdom in my music, nor do I desire it. No. I want friends. I want to feel someone else speaking about a sense of chaos and uncertainty. Who else gets the occasional feeling that they just need to voice their aimless and spontaneous thoughts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Au Revoir (Adios)” closed the show. Fitting right? One of my best childhood friends used to hate when I played that song for him. \u201cThere\u2019s no point,\u201d he\u2019d exclaim. \u201cThe entire song has like 3 distinct lyrics!\u201d  I always thought he was missing the point. \u201cThat\u2019s not what The Front Bottoms are about,\u201d I\u2019d tell him. I wouldn\u2019t say I listen to The Front Bottoms to learn how to live my life for the next 10 years. No. If I wanted that, I\u2019d turn to those podcasts from Yale professors that my mother loves to forward my way. Maybe I just want to laugh, to bounce up and down for an hour and a half, and most importantly, to listen to noise. And I think there\u2019s some value in that too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Henry Hodde The Front Bottoms\u2019 performance at Mission Ballroom last Monday was a reminder that punk rock and roll is not dead. The genre is alive and well alright. It may not look the same as the days in which The Clash and The Ramones reigned supreme, nor does it sound like Metallica, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1532,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[157,22,18],"tags":[161,151,162,160,159],"class_list":["post-4535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artist-spotlight","category-local-show-previews","category-shows","tag-brian-sella","tag-concert","tag-mathew-uychich","tag-mission-ballroom","tag-the-front-bottoms"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7fJU-1b9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1532"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4535"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4543,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}