I got to the venue around 8:30 on Saturday night, and the place was crawling with Hardcore fans outside. Security was extremely tight, everyone got frisked thoroughly to enter the venue. This was the first time I was ever at the Reverb, and as I walked in I realized that this place was the perfect venue for a Hardcore fest of this magnitude. There was a large following there that was obviously from New York. All of hardcore heavy hitters were here this weekend and I got there just in time to see the legendary
CRO-MAGS. The place erupted as soon as they started playing. There was pretty much a small riot going on in the pit with stage diving, slam dancing and people thrashing about in front of the stage.
CRO-MAGS Set List:
1. We Gotta Know
2. World Peace
3. Show You No Mercy
4. Malfunction
5. Life of My Own
6. Crush the Demoniac
7. Signs of the Times
8. Street Justice
9. Seekers of the Truth
10. Rise and Fall
11. It's the Limit
12. Don't Tread on Me
13. Hard Times
SICK OF IT ALL took the stage next and they did not disappoint. The whole place erupted all over again as soon as they started playing.
Pete Koller was like the Tasmanian Devil but with a guitar. They played Everything you wanted to hear from their arson of New York Hardcore anthems. The hardcore scene is a very tight knit group of bands, friends and fans. I was very surprised to see a show like this being held in Reading Pennsylvania.
And then WISDOM IN CHAINS played, it was evident that they had the most people out to see them. This was definitely their turf and they had the place in chaos. I'm not familiar with them but they put one hell of a show on. WISDOM IN CHAINS are definitely worth checking out if you like hardcore.
As soon as WISDOM IN CHAINS were finished playing the whole place emptied out. It was obvious who was an OBITUARY fan at this point. All the old guys with long hair that were hanging out in the back came forward. I don't have long hair anymore but I was definitely there to see OBITUARY.
With their new album "Inked In Blood" coming out in the next couple weeks, I thought that there would be a lot of fans there to see them. That was no the case though. Being a long time fan I actually felt bad for OBITUARY for the lack of people there to see them. The few people that were there to support them you could tell were die hard fans, including myself.
OBITUARY played all the classics, "Slowly We Rot", "Chopped In Half", "Kill For Me" and some new songs off "Inked In Blood". They played very well but you could tell that they weren't into it because the lack of people there to see them. There was actually an uncomfortable silence in between the songs after the applause and random shout outs.
I really don't understand why OBITUARY would agree to play a hardcore festival like this. They would have had a better turnout if it was an all metal show.
