Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
Spring has sprung and the gigs abound. I was lucky to catch the Torrance, California emo pop-punk band Joyce Manor at the Fillmore Philadelphia on Saturday night. Formed in 2008, the band have reached legend status and they released a new album in January of this year called I Used To Go To This Bar on Epitaph Records. Openers, Militarie Gun, Teen Mortgage and Combat played as well.
Although I was not able to catch Combat and Teen Mortgage’s sets (I was held up at my day job); I did get to see the few final songs of Teen Mortgage, a duo from D.C made up of guitarist/vocalist James Guile and drummer Ed Barkauskas. They released an album last year called Devil Ultrasonic Dream and their scrappy punk tunes. Their banter in-between songs was a nice touch to break up the set.
After Teen Mortgage was Militarie Gun. They are an alternative rock band based in L.A fronted by Ian Shelton with their latest LP God Save the Gun released last year. They opened with the song “God Owes Me Money” and were very energetic throughout their set. The band encouraged the crowd to jump up and down during the set. They played a few songs from a previous album Life Under The Gun as well as a spot-on cover of the Strokes song “You Only Live Once”. They ended the set with the banger “BAD IDEA” from God Save The Gun.
After Militarie Gun was Joyce Manor. It was great to see them do a headlining set, it had been a few years since I saw them last. The second song they played was a classic from Never Hungover Again, “Falling In Love Again”. The band was playing as a five piece with the addition of Neil Berthier as a third guitarist, and they sounded great. They played about 20 songs, all very short; the set only lasted about an hour, before their four song encore, ending with an older song “Five Beer Plan”. They brought the energy last night for a blast of a gig.
Photos by Jay Leiby
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