Last year was a lucky year for shows & I was able to see a handful of artists twice in 2023 — The Wonder Years, Hot Mulligan, Between the Buried and Me, Thank You Scientist, Rivers of Nihil, & of the headliner of this review, nothing,nowhere.
I almost didn’t go to this show. It was scheduled at a very inconvenient time & the tour wasn’t coming to Seattle, but when I saw nothing,nowhere. on TikTok saying that he’d be staying in for 2024 to work on a new album. So grudgingly, I called my Portland friends, bought the tickets, & hit the road.
The show was on the 6th of October at The Hawthorne Theater. It was the Friday after a double-header weekend in Seattle for Sleep Token & The Wonder Years & I knew it would be my last trip to Portland for the year because anytime after the autumn equinox travel can become dicey for me & I stick to Washington. Even Seattle is an excursion as I have to travel remote mountain passes to access the western corridor of the state where the major cities are. So, even though the trip was pretty last minute, I was determined to make it a good one.
The Hawthorne is part of a vibrant neighborhood on the eastside of Portland. I usually stay in the southwest part of the city & am accustomed to taking the bus downtown where most of the venues are (The Roseland, Dantes, McMennamin’s Crystal Ballroom) & I ended up taking the bus to this show as well. As an out of towner, I’m surprised at how navigable Trimet is. I’ve had some issues with them closing stops without any posted notification on the stop or on their website which is irritating but coming from a rural area with a very unreliable public transport system — Trimet is a reasonably good resource. I have driven into the neighborhood with a friend before (we’re BIG fans of The Gold Door & several other fun shops in the area) & parking can be difficult. Overall, if you’re going to a show at the Hawthorne & have the option to take the bus, I’d take it.
The only complaint I have for this whole experience is that The Hawthorne has an upstairs bar with seating & limited capacity, but no upstairs bathrooms. & it becomes a competition of who can hold their piss longest & I am never up for that competition. I got separated by my friends EARLY, as you’re not guaranteed re-entry upstairs.
Jokes on The Hawthorne though, Avery forgot her wallet so when I got banished to the main floor for the crime of having to pee, we stopped spending money (okay, I bought a seltzer downstairs but I would have spent more if I’d have been able to stay with my friends).
UnityTX
UnityTX opened the night with an incredibly high energy set. Their music is a fun fusion of rap & metal in a way that leans more post-hardcore than nu-metal (though there is a whisper of that in the mix). They are an engaging live act & they sounded fantastic.
Listen, I just don’t wanna be fucking mocked because I’m old & sitting in the bar. Well, at least I didn’t in the moment. Now, I think it’s really funny. If I can, you’ll always find me kicking it old man style through the openers & these guys were all over the place goofing on the people not participating, standing around the edges of the crowd or sitting down.
But let me be clear here, despite their music being on the aggressive side – designed to bash it out & release the tension in the room – their crowd work was reasonable. Unlike some other bands I’ve seen this year. they weren’t encouraging shitty behavior in the pit (After the Burial) or singling people out (Anxious).
Really, you gotta hand it to them. These guys put on a great show & riled the crowd in a way that was largely positive. I’d honestly love to see them again sometime.
Static Dress
After listening through their setlist on Spotify, I went into the show thinking I’d like Static Dress the best of the bunch. They have an accessible sound that reminds me both of modern post-hardcore like & early ‘00s electronic-tinged industrial rock. But while their music is varied & the set had a nice pace to it, they seemed insistent on keeping people going in the pit at what was sometimes a comically unreasonable pace for what they were currently playing.
It didn’t help that ultimately the live sound seemed far more muddled & disjointed than the open & spacey composition of their recordings. & while it wasn’t bad by any means, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. & paired with the agitated way they managed the crowd, I was admittedly not having the best time.
Other issues with the venue exaggerated my annoyance at that point though & I can’t say how much of the sound issues were the band or the venue (I was still up in the balcony during their set). So, if they were to play again with someone I wanted to see, I’d probably be stoked to give them another shot.
See You Space Cowboy
I was maybe most jazzed to see SYSC simply because I’d already had a chance to catch nothing.nowhere with Wage War earlier in the year & this show was my first time seeing SYSC. I also came into the set with a mood boost because I gave up my spot in the balcony bar to use the bathroom. & though I was now separated from my friends, I was able to get in fairly close to the barricades in the lower bar & had a pretty good view of the pit & the stage.
See You Space Cowboy is a whole experience. It’s not just the music but the way that they play off the crowd, there was no resistance there, even back where I was. Despite being two sets & likely several beers in all around, there was no one nearby who was not at least drunkenly swaying along to the music. & the music itself is fragmented, chaotic, it makes you want to move but doesn’t really guide you any particular way. Between the movement of the pit & the way that the band seemed to easily command even the far reaches of the room, the vibe of their set reminded me most of Kaonashi.
Would I go out to catch another show? Without a doubt.
nothing,nowhere.
This tour was one of several I caught in 2023 & early 2024 that seemed to be set up by a fairly well-known artist accompanied by a sampling of different younger bands that while adjacent in sound, are not quite the same genre.
Then again, there’s nothing quite like nothing,nowhere. His sound is varied, flexible. & in that, all to would take is a quick tweak of the set to fit him on almost any tour — this was very obvious when he leaned hard into the metal side of his sound on the aforementioned Wage War tour. Personally, I preferred his set on this tour — he didn’t shy away from the edgier songs off of his new album like TH1RST4VIOLENCE & PSYCHO_PSYCHIATRY but he also slid back into chill, more emo classics like nightmare & fake friend. While he included older tracks on the earlier run, they were rebuilt, heavier. & while I would love a studio-polished heavy version of buck, I love the OG vibes of Trauma Factory & ruiner. & unfortunately COVID sunk the opportunity to see Trauma Factory focused tours.
The set was pretty varied but ultimately it was a tour for VOID ETERNAL. He also added a cover of Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer” which was a fun choice. The set was consistently good & I had a reasonably good viewpoint where I was — though it would have been better if I had been up in the balcony where I started (though arguably I think the sound was better on the floor).
Overall, I really enjoyed his set & will always come out for nothing,nowhere. shows if I can.
Verses on Verses is a biweekly music column from the perspective of a poet. Inquiries can be directed to LE Francis, lefrancis@sagecigarettes.com.
LE Francis (she/her) is the managing editor of Sage Cigarettes Magazine; a columnist & staff artist for Cream Scene Carnival Magazine; co-host & staff editor of A Ghost in the Magazine & The Annegirls Podcast; & the author of THIS SPELL OF SONG & STAR available through Bottlecap Press. She is a writer, musician, & visual artist living in the rainshadow of the Washington Cascades. Find her online at nocturnical.com.
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