AGNOSTIC FRONT at Parkteatret (Oslo, Norway)
Special Guests: WEIGHT – KNUSTE RUTER
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
by Jorge Patacas
Celebrating 35 years of their debut album “Victim in Pain”, the New York Hardcore pioneers Agnostic Front arrived in Norway after eleven years, so it was a perfect opportunity to see them live once again on that Tuesday night.
The first of the two opening bands started their show at 7:30 p.m., exactly as it was announced. It was Weight, a new band from Oslo that has members who are well-known in the scene for their work with other local bands. Their sound is based on the New York Hardcore of the late ’80s in the style of Cro-Mags, so it was well received by the audience.
At 8:15 p.m. with more attendees on the venue already, the second and last warm up act took the stage. Knuste Ruter is a Hardcore Punk outfit with vast experience in the Norwegian scene, and it has members of Freedumb, Negativ, Summon the Crows, among other bands. They have been playing live for over ten years now and tonight they had the opportunity to play just before one of the most important bands of the genre. They are currently working on new studio material, but this time they played songs from their previous records. Thirty minutes were enough to leave the audience satisfied, so now everything was ready the New York legends.
After half an hour wait which included some soundchecks by drummer Pokey Mo, the legendary Vinnie Stigma entered the stage and the audience welcomed him energetically. He was followed by the rest of the band consisting of the aforementioned Pockey Mo behind the drum kit, Craig Silverman on guitar, Mike Gallo on bass and another legend of the genre, Roger Miret on vocals. By the way, the documentary “The Godfathers of Hardcore” was released, which revolves around the life of Miret and Stigma.
If there’s something that characterizes an Agnostic Front show, it’s the energy emerging from the stage, and this occurs from the first to the last minute. Since the start with “The Eliminator” and “Dead To Me”, the intensity was 100%, with Miret asking for a circle pit and Stigma who deserves a separate article about him. The guitarist is the definition of personified attitude; At 63, he is constantly moving on the stage, encouraging the audience to shout and doing anything necessary not to be just another show, but a true pure Hardcore party where the crowd participates actively.
After a couple of songs, noticing that the audience seemed shy, Miret said that Stigma was coming down to teach how to make a circle pit and so that happened. The restless guitarist came down from the stage, got into the audience and played there, while they were making a circle pit around him. Then someone carried him on his shoulders back to the stage and the show went on with anthems from all eras such as “Old New York”, “For My Family”, “Friend Or Foe” and “Victim in Pain”. Then they played “Power” with Stigma on vocals (yes, he also sang a song), the all-time Hardcore anthem “Gotta Go” that was chanted by everyone, “A Mi Manera”, “Addiction”, and there was even room for a couple of covers, “Crucified” by Iron Cross and “Blitzkrieg Bop”, the Ramones classic, with which they concluded their performance that lasted only one hour, but it was super intense and the crowd left the venue very satisfied. We hope to see them again soon on the tour for the new album “Get Loud!” that will be released on November 8th!
