Words and photos covered for New Noise Magazine. Original posting can be seen here complete photo gallery below.

Hot Water Music plus Bane plus small rooms plus no barricade equals a recipe for the best show experience. I can’t recall if these two bands ever toured together, let alone if they did, if a barricade was in place, but to have these two juggernaut bands together in this capacity is a show not to miss. For the New Jersey show, a new hardcore band, Manik, opened, but I missed their performance. They haven’t played around a lot; I believe this was their second show, but their lineup does include Heath Saraceno of New Jersey’s Midtown.

For this whole tour, Buffalo, New York’s hardcore group Spaced was the main support. I unfortunately missed half of their performance, but Spaced perfectly bring the sound and attitude of the ’80’s East Coast hardcore with their own spin on it. It makes sense why their album This Is All We Ever Get was released on Revelation Records. Lead singer Lexi Reyngoudt’s vocals can go up against anyone’s voice in the hardcore scene, and the same can be said about their guitarists’ riffs. After signing to Pure Noise Records and releasing their newest EP, No Escape, last month, Spaced will surely be on more tours like this.

Since this tour is a co-headliner tour, which band closes the night is different each performance, and for this show, Hot Water Music were next. Following Hot Water Music for many years, this was my first time witnessing them live. Plans always got in the way of other shows, but seeing them with no barricade isn’t a bad way to see them for the first time. Right out of the gate, they broke into “Drag My Body,” which saw the band jumping constantly in place for the intro of the song. Through their set, Hot Water Music didn’t talk a lot, but let the music do the talking, and if they did talk, it was about how this community of music means so much and to keep the positivity going.

They touched on almost all their albums through their set, including my recent favorite of theirs, “After The Impossible” from their 2024 album Vows. The emotion in the song is unmatched, and hearing it live brings in a whole other level of emotion. Songs like “Free Radio Gainesville” and “Choked And Separated” had the biggest reaction from the crowd—The fists were raised, but sadly no stage dives during their set. Closing their set with “Trusty Chords” almost felt like an anthem; everyone was singing out to the very end with hands held high. Not a bad way to witness my first Hot Water Music show, and I hope not my last.

Closing the night were Bane, and having this band back playing shows is a wonderful thing. Having seen them on their farewell tour in 2016, and seeing them again now, it was like no time had passed. Bane shows are always chaotic but beautiful at the same time. They were my first hardcore show, and compared to other hardcore bands, the aggression is always left at the door. People are jumping in the crowd, windmilling, jumping on each other, but if someone falls, there are others to help them up. Bane preaches this during the show, too: Help others around you, and we are here as a community for the love of music. Their set was shorter than Hot Water Music’s, but if they played beforehand, I don’t think anyone would’ve recovered because even Aaron Bedard said this show had the most stage dives on the tour.

Every song had someone jumping in the crowd, and even “As The World Turns” made an appearance from their latest album reissue, 6:58 PM Boston, an album that didn’t have much life when they were around, but now has a second life, and the songs are top-notch in my opinion. To see Bane performing again is very therapeutic, and seeing everyone in the band smiling constantly while performing makes me think Bane are here to stay.