True Colors North American Tour

I don't get out for shows very often these days, but some how I ended up with one a week for a three week period. Last week, Rob and I caught the spoken word gig from Henry Rollins, this week was True Colors, and next week will be the Killfest with Overkill. Paul and I made the trip to Haverhill, Massachusetts a couple days ago for True Colors. I missed them the last time they toured North America, and there was no way that I was going to miss them this time through.

The whole night was a blast, and I enjoyed every band that played. Caught In A Crowd started the show with a nice youth crew sound. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was just my exceptionally good mood, but there was something about watching these kids tear through their set on the small stage at Anchors Up...it just reminded me how special hardcore is to me. Here was a new band of kids, playing a style of music that I fell in love with about 20 years ago. There was nothing pretentious about it...just some friends playing music that they love and having a good time doing it. They had demo tapes for sale, but I'm fighting the tape revival tooth and nail, so I didn't buy one. Next up was Street Sweeper. They had a great Lockin' Out vibe going on, and it made sense that Justin DeTore and Doug Cho from Rival Mob helped the band record their Stylin' On You demo. I was really looking forward to Alert. I've been listing to their demo 7 inch a lot since the Mindset show a few months ago, and couldn't wait to get up front and sing along. They played a great set, and it was cool to catch up with Keith and Puffer during the night.

The crowd was pretty small for a Thursday night, but I still hung around at the front of the stage with a few guys for the True Colors set. When they started everything off with a Straight Ahead cover, I lost it and found that I would have moshed over puppies to get up to the mic to sing along. The singer had tremendous energy and was all over the stage for the entire set. The Rival Mob ended the night. This was my third time seeing them, and they just get better each time around. The singer know how to work a crowd, and if I had known their songs better, I would have piled on to the crowd that gathered for the chorus of Mob Rules All and Raw Life. Intense. I need to pull out the vinyl I have for their album and give it another spin.

I made sure that I was first in line at the True Colors merch table, and as soon as I saw the True Colors Straight Edge North American Tour shirt, I knew that I had to have it. There is something about a tour shirt with dates and cities on the back that is special to me.

The band also had a tour pressing of Focus On The Light with them. This was the same white vinyl, blank label pressing that Six Feet Under used for the special release of the album at the end of 2009. This one comes with a special screened cover. This now gives me 5 different pressings for this album. All of them are from Six Feet Under, and I don't own a single copy of the Powered pressing.


The back of the album cover is plain white with the exception of the hand numbering down in the lower corner. True Colors had a sign up that said they only had 40 left, and I got number 59 of the 94 pressed.