Apocalypse Hoboken, Oblivion | Abbey Pub, Chicago, 12/29/06

On Friday night, a great friend of mine and I went to see Apocalypse Hoboken and Oblivion at the Abbey Pub in Chicago.

For those not in the know — mainly anyone not living in the city of Chicago — these two bands have been at the forefront of Chicago hardcore punk for the past ten years or so. That is, until the past three years or so. These past years have clearly been spent forgetting the songs they knew and drinking lots and lots of beer…probably PBR. But on Friday night, they brought the house down at their reunion show, complete with chicks screaming lyrics, Heineken and High Life all over the crowd, and their Morrison-like deity of a front-man Todd Pot sharing a joint with the crowd before their set began…

All in all, a great time…

Oblivion did their trademark Fat Wreck Chords style pop punk and got great reactions from the crowd. The three dudes that makes up the band looked like they were having a really great time. They messed up a few tunes and I definitely saw the drummer miss a couple queues, but other than that, the guys looked better than ever and it’d be cool to see them continue on as a band…

Apocalypse Hoboken was the real draw of the night for me. They played their hits, their classics — “Jag Rag…” was my favorite. I remembered the feeling I had seeing these guys when I was 16 or so…whatta thrill. It was funny, too — I could see the pit of people towards the front of the stage perfectly from my spot in the balcony. “That used to me up there,” I thought. But that’s all I did — I thought. I didn’t dare get too close, even though it wasn’t really rough or anything. It just didn’t really turn me on anymore..

In all seriousness for me, this was more of a bonding experience for me and my good friend Pete. One of the reasons he came back to the area for the holiday was for this show, and we just had to go. We used to go see both Apocalypse Hoboken and Oblivion back in the day (say 1997-1998), back when Fireside Bowl was still alive and kicking and the clubs were all smoking permitted. Pete moved away and I moved away from punk music, but through his newfound love of MySpace, Pete became a friend of the band and saw that they were playing. He booked the next flight out…

And he was one of those guys up front. He threw a beer on Todd, just as he had done to begin their set. And both him and Todd had never been happier…