Feature Articles

Macrock 2001

The early afternoon hours of Friday, April 6 were the time for the beginning of an invasion. The campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, often characterized by its overall affinity for J Crew, frat letters, and gabby colloquialism, was suddenly infiltrated by stormtroopers of college radio, outfitted in band t-shirts, tank tops, torn pants, chains, tattoos and piercings. MACRoCk 2001-2 days, 100+ bands, label expos and panel discussions-had begun. However, the aforementioned generalization of the MACRoCk crowd is the exact antithesis of this annual event. The Mid-Atlantic College Radio Conference is a weekend of live music and industry events as diverse as the varied array of genres available on college radio. Musical styles as disparate as Hardcore, Emo, Jazz, and Folk drew a few thousand individuals from as far away as Los Angeles. The annual college radio conference, in its fifth and biggest year, is the product of the blood, sweat and tears of the relentless staff at WXJM. With no monetary compensation for their efforts, they truly live up to the philosophy and passion of independent music.

With so much music and myriad things to see, a comprehensive review of the whole weekend is more than unfeasible. However, the Smother staff and a few special recruits have brought you a mere taste of the excitement.

Friday night, April 6, PC Ballroom

The bright sun lingered to warm the concrete outside, but the excitement was all beginning inside the PC Ballroom. Although the Friday night Hardcore showcase, infamous for intense sets and an insane crowd, got off to a disappointing start with the announcement that Dillinger Escape Plan would not be showing (rumors of a band break-up flew, but rumors are as such), eccentric indie rockers Saul woke the crowd back up with a set of their eclectic melodies meshed with madness and keyboards. Although not performing as tightly or convincingly as when I saw them before, their set was an interesting, if not ill-placed, start to the hardcore showcase.

SaU were followed by equally incongruous indie sounds of Halftrack and Marion Delgado. They both played standard-issue melodic and occasionally even slightly heartfelt indie rock with little in the way of variation or innovation. Both of these bands, while they performed tight sets, were not so well received by those listening.

The air was thick with a brewing storm and the anxious hardcore crowd, becoming listless from the relaxed attitudes of the first three bands, was sufficiently rewarded as Army of Ponch took the stage. This Florida quartet rocked out some high-energy, emotional, moody, punk. Unfortunately, after driving 16 hours to make the show, AOP only ended up getting in three songs because they played too hard and broke a string on every one. I think they deserve kudos for that.

After Army of Ponch, the showcase was finally starting to feel like the hardcore showcase should. Following AOP was Caste, an energetic straight-up hardcore band that whipped the crowd into the fury they had been waiting for. Their infectious energy spread through the venue and the crowd was finally alive.

The crowd may have been alive, but Façade Burned Black was out to kill them all with their obtuse, weighty, metallic hardcore. The crowd went wild to their time changes and intense dance parts. The energy was building.

But it was as if the audience had never moved when the entire venue exploded with Spitfire's energy. Tearing through a set of speedy, shredding hardcore punk, Spitfire electrified the crowd. Their tie-sporting singer tore emotional blurs from his throat on every song and spent more time on the people than on the stage. The audience went crazy to the sing-alongs and the singer was in no way stingy with microphone time for the crowd.

All of this energy build-up was aimed perfectly at the climax and ultimate release of the night-Darkest Hour. Certainly one of the most musically, lyrically and vocally intense bands playing these days, Darkest Hour took the stage with conviction. The crowd embraced their pounding, genre-bending melodic and abusive sound. They opened brutally with "For the Soul of the Savior" and didn't cease the intensity for the following 45 minutes. Besides hammering out crowd favorites, they introduced the attending mass to some new tunes. The new material is fiercer than anything Darkest Hour has written before. I must say this is the most exciting band Victory has signed in a long time and the forthcoming record will be absolutely unprecedented in the hardcore genre.

By the end of Darkest Hour's set, most of the crowd seemed to have forgotten the letdown at the sight of the sign declaring Dillinger's no show. Several hundred hardcore Macrockers retreated into the night-deafened, bruised, satisfied.