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As the venue filled a little more with people, the next band set up equipment
and tuned guitars and check-checked into the mics. This band
was Bethpage Black, and with five tall guys with facial hair and
Adam’s apples (and one with a really sweet afro), they stood in
stark comparison to the infantile Modern Drone. They had a
heavier, more metal influenced sound, and I immediately related
them to The Mars Volta, Alien Ant Farm, and My Chemical Romance
(the good qualities of My Chemical Romance, that is). The
vocalist, Matt Carmichael, was impressive: he owned the stage and
had the powerful voice necessary to front a heavy-rock band.
He reminded me of a line from Almost Famous, where the lead singer,
Jeff Bebe, is talking to Russell Hammond, the guitarist, and says,
“I work just as hard or harder than anybody on that stage. You know
what I do? I connect. I get people off. I look for the guy who
isn’t getting off, and I make him get off.” This is all I
could think of watching this front-man making wonderful, terrifying
eye contact with each individual in the crowd, sweating and
writhing and craning his neck to meet the microphone and belting
out lines and lyrics. “Not to be upstaged was the rest of the band
who provided the gritty and tenacious songs. They played
skillfully and knowingly, and their small details (i.e. a trumpet)
made a difference. Steve Coy on the drums was in his own
little percussive world, providing a thundering heartbeat to the
songs and the set as a whole. Basically, Bethpage Black made
me miss my days of playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater (and by playing I
mean watching my older brothers play) and listening to Sugarcult
and Taking Back Sunday and feeling hardcore ‘cause I was rocking
some Converse.”