beatlanta.com

This was the third time in just a few weeks that I got to see the Bastard Suns from Atlanta and I must say that they have become one of my favorite live bands. After playing the SoCo Music Experience, opening up for Against Me!, one week later opening up for Pennywise and Strung Out, now they were having their first headlining show at the Masquerade. So it was a quite busy month for the band. They brought their label mates and friends from No Fuego along, with whom they recorded the Split-CD “Dropping Expectations” for Unable Records. I missed the first band again but got in right on time to see the second band. I don’t remember their name, but that doesn’t bother me at all, because they sucked! They are friends of the Bastard Suns, but play horribly boring 90’s alternative rock. It was actually painful. Sorry guys, but there would have been many other punk bands to fill in that slot that would have been excited to play the Masquerade and fit much better. After that No Fuego from Baton Rouge, LA saved the evening! They do a mix of punk rock a la Hot Water Music mixed with Bagpipes and a bit of Dropkick Murphys in there. They played a few songs from their Split with the Suns and also from their full length they put out by themselves. It was a good show and you definitely need to check them out! Then it was the Bastard Suns and they have apparently become a pretty popular band in Atlanta, since there were about 100 to 150 people there to see them, which is not bad at all for a local band. They played a solid show, doing their usual reggae and ska influenced drinking punk rock and the crowd loved it. I think we will hear lots more of this band in the future, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they become a big band someday. But in my opinion the Bastard Suns are not a headlining band, yet. They were much more fun when they only got 30 minutes and played song after song, without trying stupid stuff like a drum solo and so on. But even that couldn’t ruin their good and powerful performance. If you want to check them out, I’d advice you to buy the Split CD, cause you get the best of both bands and that’s a very good deal. It really is a very good CD So check both of them out and check at the Masquerade’s myspace page in a few days for pictures: www.myspace.com/thebastardsuns