THE WRECKS LEAVE MERCURY LOUNGE IN A SWEATY MESS OF BLISS

The night The Wrecks came to Mercury Lounge, I was eagerly waiting to revert back to my full-fledged teenage self – badly drawn eye liner, gross Converse sneakers, knit beanies slightly pushed back – spending the pop-punk days of my youth in small basement venues. More people with X’s adorning their hands filled the room that night than those who didn’t, making me nostalgic and glad the youth has good taste in music.

I ran in right on time and somehow managed to squeeze my way towards the front without any of the die-hard fans side-eyeing me or my camera too hard. The fans of bands like The Wrecks are passionate about the music they like and as I noticed the bodies in that room pressed as close as possible to the stage, I knew I was in for a great show.

Opening the show that night was Arizona-based band The Technicolors. Lead vocalist Brennan Smiley’s raspy old-school rock and roll voice fuses together their slightly pop-punk/alt-rock sound nicely. The last time they played at Mercury Lounge, it was to the insignificant amount of 15 people but this time around, the house was almost full right off the bat and they were able to shred on stage and have energy from a crowd to bounce off of. Their cover of The Troggs’ “Wild Thing” was out of this world.

Technicolors

I was so glad to see the now LA-based band, Mainland was coming back to their old stomping grounds to play a show. They were the first band I saw/photographed almost 4 years ago when I first moved to New York City and I’ve been loving them ever since. Though they didn’t play any of their oldies from their EP Shiner, they did play crowd favorites like “Beggars,” “Empty Promises” and “Outcast” getting the crowd dancing. They ended with their newest song, “I Found God,” a beautiful love song explaining the religious experience that is being in love. The crowd blanketed the room with the lights from their cell phones and the white-blue light spilled over Mainland as they preached to the crowd.

Mainland

From the moment that The Wrecks took the stage, it was a party. It was the battle of the Nicks as lead vocalist Nick Anderson’s screams were echoed throughout the room by the crowd and guitarist Nick Schmidt spun, jumped and fell to his knees swinging his guitar as close to the fans as possible. The energy of the whole band was non-stop, as if they were all trying to put out a fire from their asses but in a rhythmically beautiful way…I guess you had to be there.

The Wrecks

The band only has three songs out right now but is already headlining its first tour. Though they got a little grief from their label for wanting to tour with only three songs, but they proved that they were able to conquer the feat. They added in some newbies that I’m excited to hear on an upcoming album, especially “Panic Vertigo.” They even played a rad cover of Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.”

The Wrecks

The Wrecks ended the night with crowd favorites “Turn It Up” and “Favorite Liar,” tearing the stage to shreds and leaving everyone covered in a sweaty mess of bliss.