Rockezine.com concert review for Snapcase on Dec 03, 2002 in the Melkweg/Amsterdam

Dec 03, 2002

It had been two years since I last saw a Snapcase show, so I was looking forward to this. It was also good to know Time In Malta landed the support slot on this tour. The Melkweg opted to add another band to the bill. So we had three bands on a weekday and the first band got on stage at 21:00.

White Flag
It was a weird combination; aforementioned bands and White Flag on the same bill. WF has been around for twenty years, and to celebrate this the US punk band is touring the world. Front man Pat Fear looked a lot like wrestling manager Paul Bearer, but was running around the stage clearly trying to make this a cool show.

Their bass player looked a lot like Ken Stringfellow from The Posies, and much to my surprise it actually was him! The band wasted no time and worked its way through a set filled with a mixture of punk, rock and pop. Appreciation only came from the handful of die-hard fans in front of the stage. This would have worked much better in a smaller club with White Flag as headliner, because it was painfully obvious most people had not come to see this legendary band.

Time In Malta
Time In Malta played its first show in the Netherlands tonight. Earlier this year I had been pleasantly surprised by their split 12” with fellow Americans Breathe In (out on Reflections Records) and their full-length A Second Engine (on Equal Vision). These guys from San Francisco are hard to categorize; their wall of sound is very heavy at times, but they also have a lot of melody in their sound (they even cover Nick Drake on the aforementioned split 12”). It’s even better live.

We had to wait a while because of some technical difficulties, but it was worth the while. With a good front man, who can both scream and sing, this is one of the most interesting hardcore bands the US has recently spawned. Reminiscent of bands like Boysetsfire, but also a slight bit of Dillinger Escape Plan. Very good and a band to watch out for. There wasn’t much crowd participation, though.

Snapcase
On their latest record End Transmission, New York’s Snapcase have opted for, again, a different approach. Their days of Lookinglasself are long left behind. Taking more time to build up their songs, and in the process creating soundscapes that last longer than your usual 2-minute aggression outburst. Live however, the band still relies on the heavy hitters.

Starting off with “Caboose” from ‘97’s masterpiece Progression Through Unlearning, the band worked its way through a set filled with new material like “Coagulate” and classics like “Bleeding Orange” and “Zombie Prescription.” Finally some action in front of the stage, as the band performed well. I have to say that even though I like the new record a lot, the older songs work much better live.After all these years, Snapcase have changed musically and are still innovating and worth checking out live. If you missed them, they will be back in early 2003 together with The Hope Conspiracy.

(Review & Pics: Miguel Tegen)