Terror / H2O at the Roxy in Los Angeles, 02/14/13

Thence to the Roxy on Valentine’s day for a show of good old-fashioned Hardcore east coast style even though not all the bands were from the east coast. It was an early show – earlier than I was told. I arrived around 8 PM and found the second band already finishing up! Oh well. Fortunately the bands I wanted to see had not yet played.

H2O is from New York City, although in recent years they’ve mostly relocated out to this side of the country. They’ve been around since the mid-1990s and they still rock hard and fast! There have been no line-up changes since 1996 and the band is very tight. They played an excellent collection of songs from all of their records, combining early classics like “Family Tree,” “I See It In Us,” “Guilty By Association,” and the ever popular “Five Yr. Plan” with later favorites like “Go” and “Nothing to Prove.” Toby’s voice has held up well over the years and the band’s playing remains strong. The crowd was heavy with moshers and stage divers, but no one got hurt.

Unfortunately the same could not be said when Terror played after H2O. Terror is from L.A. and has been around for 10 years. However they play a heavy brand of slower hardcore that strongly shows the influence of east coast bands. They also played a great set; they were tight and the lead singer connected well with the crowd, urging stage divers to land on peoples' heads. Unfortunately this may have been taken a little too literally as the one blemish was when someone got badly clocked in the pit and had to be dragged off the floor, completely out of it. Fortunately he was all right and I saw him again later in the set fully recovered. These sorts of incidents are actually a lot rarer at Punk shows than the media would have you believe but even one is too many. Thankfully nothing else happened to mar the show.

The Bear