This week on WKNC, we’re giving you tons of free stuff, or schwag (as DJ MollyPop says). We’re giving away mega CDs, such as:

Willowz' Everyone

Male Bonding's Nothing Hurts

CocoRosie's Grey Oceans

Blitzen Trapper's Destroyer of the Void

LCD Soundsystem's This is Happening

We’re also giving away tickets to Brooks Woods’ Band on June 26 at the Pour House, and tickets to MC Chris at Cat’s Cradle on June 26. Stay tuned this week, for these giveaways as well as others!

Ok so it is June… but it isn’t my fault that May kicked ass. I mean seriously. I graduated from NC State, saw my family, and went to some of the best local shows I have been to in a while.

I had planed to attend several big shows in the weeks following graduation, however, I was sadly only able to make it to 3 shows featuring 8 bands. But what great shows they were.

Click on any picture to go to the full Gallery

May 15th: Cat’s Cradle: Hey Euphony, Whole Wheat Bread, MC Chris

This show was a mystery for me going in, because I was not familiar with any of the acts; also, I had never been to Cat’s Cradle before.

Hey Euphony kicked off the night with a high energy, pop punk set. Hey Euphonyis based out of Durham. The crowd seemed to like them and I am personally looking forward to taking a closer look at the material on their myspace.

Now on to reason I was interested in the show- Whole Wheat Bread

Whole Wheat Bread is based out of Jacksonville, Florida. The band plays what they like to call "Crunk Punk Rock" - an awesome blend of hard punk rock with hip hop style.

The newest addition to the band, bassist/back up vocalist, Johnny Rock took a quick break at one point. In the mean time, guitarist/vocalist, Aaron Abraham and drummer Joseph Largen gave the crowd a taste of Whole Wheat Bread's Hip Hop side. At one point, Aaron Abraham blew up the crowd with a free style rap about The Golden Girls.

While perhaps 3/4 of the crowd had never seen Whole Wheat Bread in concert or even heard of the band before, when it came time to end the set, there was an over whelming demand for an encore. Perhaps one of the greatest things that this band has going for it is the infectiousness of the energy that they put forth on stage. They got great response from the crowd the entire performance, they got the people to dance on stage and on the floor, and they rocked the place like they were the headliner. Whole Wheat Bread is an act that I recommend everyone go see the next time they pass through.

MC Chris (AKA MC Pee Pants from Aqua Team Hunger Force) finished off the night to a packed crowd. MC Chris performs "nerd core" hip hop. It was suspected by audience members that MC Chris was lip syncing his show. Regardless of the truth of those suspicions, I was not impressed by MC Chris's performance. It was just him, on the stage with his laptop playing his music while he "sang". The most entertaining part of his set was when he called out a heckler in the crowd.

May 20th: Cat’s Cradle: Maylene and The Sons of Disaster, Clutch

I had looked forward to this concert for months because Clutch has been one of my favorite bands for the last few years. Native to Maryland and with more than 10 albums to their credit, Clutch passes through the Triangle roughly once a year; and unfortunately does not allow photography at their shows. This year’s show, while fun, was a bit of a disappointment from previous times I had seen them. The mosh pit broke out fast, but disappeared just as quickly as it had started, the lead singer didn’t have much to say to the crowd, and it was difficult to see the band due to an unusually tall audience. I dare to say metal/hard rockers Maylene and The Sons of Disaster put on a better, higher energy performance.

May 27th: The Pour House: Black Skies, Caltrop , Colossus

This show featured some of the best Raleigh has to offer in hard rock and metal, and I hate myself for not realizing what pocket I had put my camera in. It wasn’t until Colossus took that stage that I realized that I hadn’t left my camera at home.

Black Skies is from Chapel Hill and was celebrating the vinyl release of Hexagon (5/26/09).  I look forward to seeing more this band in the future because I’m not entirely sure about how much I enjoyed the performance. Part of it was the stage presence of the band, part of it was the annoying buzz that was feeding into the mix from a bad cable. However, I do encourage people to check out their music none the less.

Caltrop, also from Chapel Hill, is the embodiment of local music history with members having been part of Hazerai, Pegasus, El Sucio, The Ladderback, and Valient Thorr. Caltrop produces a hard rock jam band feel that just oozes potential. The band’s LP, World Class, lives up to  its’ title fully.

To finish the night, Colossus performed to a disappointingly small crowd, but kicked ass anyway.

To quote Colossus's Myspace: "The five Mini-Colossoi are slaves to the power of the lord Poseidon, and must do his bidding. He commands us to rock unsuspecting American youth in your bars and houses, drinking your beer and crushing your skulls with thundering beats, baroque polyphony, galloping basses, and soaring vocals, all of which testify the awesome power of the mighty Poseidon." This is certainly something that Colossus excels at. Their sets are high tempo, they get the crowd into the performance with thier intense energy, and they even sing 'happy birthday' and toast thier friends in the middle of the show. They make it abundantly clear that they love to perform.

So in 3 weeks time, I saw 4 local bands and 4 non-local, nationally touring bands. Beleive me, the local bands certainly held their ground and put forth some great acts; and not all of the national acts were that great. Going to these shows made me think about the nature of concerts, and to a certain extent, music itself. Perhaps the biggest difference between great music/concerts/bands and everything else, is the experience one walks away with. A show by a great act makes the audience walk away pumped up,  or full of memories and opinions of what they just experienced; a show by a not so great act does not. Part of why this is, is the reason people go to the show in the first place, and part of it is the showmanship of the band. When I went to see Hey Euphony, Whole Wheat Bread and Clutch, I walked away feeling as though I had experienced something. However, if I hadn’t stayed for Colossus, and had simply gone home after seeing Black Skies, I may not have felt the same way.

Part of what causes this differentiation in experience lies on the individual at the show, and the other part lies on the shoulders of the band. Colossus, Whole Wheat Bread, Hey Euphony, and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster showed up to perform; not to simply play a gig, but to rock out and have an awesome time. Now this isn’t to say that the other bands didn’t; perhaps the crowd just wasn’t into it, or came to see someone else.

It is for this reason that I ask everyone that goes to support local music, to be active at it. Don’t just go to a show to have a couple beers, hang out, or just b.s. around: Go to the show to have an experince. Get into the music, the people on stage, and the people around you. For the love god, dance, hand bang, jump around, or whatever else comes to mind. Just don’t stand there with a stick up your butt and bounce your head like a bobble head doll. One thing that bands like Colossus, Red Collar, and other local bands excel at, is bringing the audeince to the edge of thier comfortable “chill” zone and pushing them into having an awesome time.