Give Up The Ghost, Daughters, The Bled, Till Death & The Kill

The set changes were almost as exciting as watching the bands at the Palo Cedro Halloween hardcore show. The Redding, California, locals were out in all their glory, but very few people dressed up…or did they!? It helped to pass the time, playing a game and guessing if a person was actually wearing a costume or if they wore those clothes all the time. There were numerous vampires, some Asian schoolgirls, a walking condiment (ketchup, I think) and a few people with torn white shirts spattered with red dye. Then there were all the hardcore kids dressed in their usual attire, perhaps too tough to front an alter-persona for an evening.
The show started with two local bands, The Kill and Till Death. The Kill admits to their own sloppiness but won’t apologize for it, because they’re too punk to care what you think.
Till Death was obviously a favorite with the crowd. This band had everything: mic handouts, the crowd singing along nearly the whole time, dueling harmonized guitars, driving beats and more. They even had a metal rendition of “the Storm Trooper theme” from Star Wars. True metal dwells on the outskirts of Redding.
The Daughters’ vocalist had some fascination with his saliva falling off of things such as his mouth and the microphone. The spaz-core band played a short set, but most of their songs were no more than 30 seconds, so I guess in terms of the number of songs played, it was longer than any of the other sets. Every song was followed by an emphatic “Fuck YEAH!” from the same person in the audience. Giggles washed over the crowd the first three times, after that I think people just wanted to kill that one emphatic person. The songs were tight and energetic and had the crowd more than excited. I caught one girl telling another that this band is what Redding needs.
The Bled’s vocalist dedicated a few songs to the costumed people…I think he was probably as confused as I as to which had costumes. After hearing this band’s album, I must say I was a bit disappointed by their performance. The guitars got off a bit every now and then, and the vocalist seemed only interested in posing for cameras. I got the impression that they didn’t care too much about this particular show. The general population of the crowd didn’t seem to mind or care.
The band that was supposed to play next was Fairweather…however, they didn’t. I am still unsure of the name of the band that did play instead. The singer paced the stage the whole time while shouting his lyrics. I’m fairly sure they were straight-edge...it was the bold Xs on their hands that gave it away.
The show ended with Give Up The Ghost playing an intense few songs. The audience crowded the stage; elbows, fists and feet were swung in every direction at anybody who was in the way; stage diving and crowd surfing commenced and Give Up The Ghost satisfied the crowd with their hardcore music, leaving kids to go home to their families with warm memories of Halloween, 2003.
– Words and photo by Matt Henderson

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