One of these days

It's been many years since I first saw The Atomic Bitchwax; back before I was doing the blog they performed at Molly Maguire's on a bill with Nebula and Core for a heavy evening. They rolled back through town again in late 2005 for a set at Babylon with local space-gods Castor. And here we are, almost a decade later and they're still trucking along - and sounding better than ever after a few rocky years. Also on the bill for this evening were Michigan Motorhead worshippers Against The Grain and locals Big Moan and Blackbread. Big Moan were just wrapping up their first song as I walked in the door at House of Targ Monday Night. Here's guitarist and singer Calvin!



Rhythm section action with Mandy and Jon!



Hair-tossing action!



Jon hits!



Kane works the frets.



Extra Calvin!



Big action!



The shouty bit!



Banged action!



More Mandy!



Extra Jon!



On to BlackBread, which played a typically sharp set.



More Paul and Megan!



Roof-raising action!



Ian handles the low end.



Extra Megan!



Yeesh, I totally forgot to take any photos of Adam. Well, next time!



Against The Grain really ripped things up. Unfortunately, they made me think so much of Motorhead I couldn't help but make an unfavorable comparison. But that's just me - the audience was super-enthusiastic for their deadly thrash sounds. Here's frontman Chris Nowak and lead guitarist Nick Bellomo.



More guitar with Bryan Griffin!



The shouty bit!



Extra Nick!



Rob Nowak (brother of Chris, of course) hits!



Frontline action!



Singalong action!



Atomic Bitchwax played an absolutely monstrous set; the crowd went crazy for the gigantic riffs being dealt out by Finn Ryan and bassist Chris Kosnik, to say nothing of drummer Bob Pantella's mighty thumping. Here's Finn, trading some vocal back-and-forth with Kosnik.



Rhythm section action!



Bob hits!



Fisheyed action!



Finn frets!



One thing about the House of Targ - it's easy to take good drummer photos ...



The crowd was super-hyped for the encore, which kicked off with a killer cover of Pink Floyd's One Of The Days.