I looked forward to this weekend for two months. I had been getting really into hardcore by this time, having placed orders with Victory Records, Very Distro, Vacuum, and several classified ads in MRR. Ah the good ol days. Anyway, I remember I had just started working at Don & Bob's the week of these shows. As it was my first job, I felt awkward taking a whole weekend off for all these hardcore shows. So I only went to the Syracuse fest for Sunday and I stayed back here Friday and Saturday. I remember Despair and Hatebreed were playing in Buffalo on the Friday. Always a fan of supporting my scene, I opted to check out this Ire show instead. Plus I don't think I knew too many people going to the Buffalo show. Anyway, I don't remember if Fahrenheit Killer played this show or not, but I think they did. I didn't see very many Innerface shows with Jody on vocals, but I enjoyed what I did see. Unfortunately, this band wasn't around much more after this. They released a good CD on a European label but that was pretty much it. This show was in a basement over by Wilson Farms on Monroe Avenue. There were a few shows there that year and Shodokan played many of them. I always enjoyed their improv blast/mosh as I was a big fan of moshing back then. Some of their shows were more notorious than others. This was not one of them. I remember someone performing in their underwear and knocking out a lightbulb with the microphone. Other than that, pretty fun typical set. I think this may have been the first time they did No More Pain (Moment of Truth) live. This was always one of my favorite MOT songs. Ire closed the night out, with some good loud brutal music. They were from Montreal and had played here the previous year on Mother's Day. After this show, I ordered their 7" on Makoto Recordings. I believe it was three songs. This and their split with Seized was my favorite material from the band. It was some good heavy, dirty, and slow hardcore. After that, they sounded a bit too metal for my interests. I thought some of these dudes went onto Born Dead Icons, but I could be wrong. 
The next day, I worked a typical 11-5 Saturday shift at Don & Bob's, mostly serving old people shitty food. When I got out, I rode my bike home, changed my clothes and went about my normal routine. A few of my friends and I adopted a pretty gross hobby in the summers of 1996 and 1997, scum jumping in the canal. In retrospect, it was gross and I wonder if any of those urban legends are true. Anyway, as I got out to the spot we usually jumped from that day, I noticed a bunch of caution tape up around the bridge. As there were no cell phones back then, I got kind of freaked out for about a half hour thinking that something had happened to some of my friends. It turned out to be someone else, still sucks though. Two people were struck and killed on those tracks by a train that day. I don't think we jumped from that bridge very many times again after that, if at all.
Sunday morning, I caught a Greyhound bus to Syracuse. I had only been there one other time prior to this, with my sister in sixth grade for an NBA preseason game at the Carrier Dome. This was not the Greyhound terminal that I usually see around the Carousel Center now. This was more of in a run down neighborhood and I had to walk by what somewhat resembled projects on my way to the area where Hungry Charlie's was located at. One funny thing about Hungry Chuck's was that ten years later one of my managers at Ruby Tuesday had worked at Chuck's in the 70s. Small world. Anyway, as usual I was early so I headed over to Bruegger's and grabbed some bagels. Some things will never change. After this, I went out and started waiting outside the venue. There was a couple other dudes waiting outside and soon after, a few Rochester people were waiting in line with me. I remember meeting Rory Van Grol for the first time this day, good dude. I also met some dude from Connecticutt who was in a band called Smackdown (I think?). I gave him my address and two months later he sent me a pretty bad demo tape. After a while, I met up with my buddy Ben and the doors were opened. Ben had gone up a day early because he wanted to make sure he caught Today is the Day and Beta Minus Mechanic's sets. Anyway, it would appear that in my program, I put the bands that played on Sunday in order. I have Frodus crossed off on my list, which doesn't necessarily mean they didn't play, I would just rather think that they did not. Anyway, I will make mention of all the bands that I have in order, and as I remember everything too. One To Face opened the show up. I think they were a Syracuse straight edge band, but I'm not 100% sure. Birthright played next and I am positive that they were a straight edge band. Their style of music could be referred to as the late 90s straight edge soundtrack. As a loyal edgeman of 1997, I found myself moshing and soon purchasing their records. I believe this band covered Inside Out at this show and I sang along. I don't remember much from Drowning Room's show, but for some reason I bought their Divinity Syndrome record after this show. I listened to it once or twice and probably sold it for a quarter to someone in my distro. Ascension, a metalcore band from Cleveland was up next. Metalcore was never really my bag and bands like this were usually on bills by the handfuls. One of the dudes from this band is in Chimaira now. Harvest and Endeavor were next up. I can't remember when exactly, but at some point outside some dude pulled a gun on Karl from Earth Crisis. I remember thinking Hatebreed better still play. After a little break, the show went on as planned. I was never a huge fan of Endeavor or Harvest, but both bands always managed to keep my attention live. I remember thinking it was really funny seeing all the Harvest dudes wearing Trustkill shirts on stage. I guess I just hope it was some kind of a joke. Ground Zero was yet another mosh metal band from Connecticut. I enjoyed them enough to buy their demo and 7" from their singer. I bought a Common Ground 7" from the singer as well, a VT band featuring the drummer from In Reach. Both of those bands were good mid to late 90s hardcore bands, more in the youth crew variety. I am pretty sure Another Victim played after the dinner break. What's weird is I am pretty sure this was the only time I ever saw this band live. They didn't play Rochester all that much and I always seemed to just miss them in Syracuse. I would make up for it when The Promise was around. Anyway, I was getting pretty tired by this point but there was still two bands coming up towards the end that I was excited for. Day of Suffering brought some crazy metalcore up with the Southern Empire. I remember dudes going off pretty hard for these guys. Again, not really my thing, but still entertaining to watch. Finally the time had come. Hatebreed and Despair were on tour together at the time and they closed this fest out together. I got hit in the throat really hard during Hatebreed's set by one of those stupid Syracuse Sluggers. My throat hurt for the next couple days. It wasn't the last time I would walk away battered and bruised from a Syracuse show. Hatebreed played a couple more songs than the other time I had seen them, but I think it was still a pretty short set. As simple as those songs were, those first six or seven songs are still my favorite Hatebreed songs. Despair closed the show off and I remember thinking it felt more like a party than anything else. That might have had something to do with Andy Williams moshing around in a "Who Farted" hat. Either way, this was one of the most fun shows I went to in 1997. What's weird is I had so much fun and I only really enjoyed maybe four or five bands. This was one of the first shows I remember stage diving more than once at, well at least I tried. What was also great about this was all the vegan food made readily available during the dinner break. It has (and still is) been my dream since then to open up a venue like this. This was my first real exposure to a lot of vegetarian food at once and within two weeks, I had finally made the switch. Finally, another thing I miss about shows like this is fanzines, distros, and networking with the people that ran them. Everyone has their reasons for disliking technology and that is mine. You can read another write up on Stuckinthepast HERE
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