LIVE REVIEW: Vans House Party @ House of Vans, Brooklyn 7/29/11

LOL. OMG.

These, ladies and gentleman, are three of the latest additions to the 2011 Oxford English Dictionary. In an attempt to keeping with the zeitgeist, OED reached into the

Epic.

However, in today’s time, epic has taken been subverted into a new monster, more associated with bro-fests and beer pong than sirens or sea voyages.

Fall out of bed? Epic.
Tie your shoes? Epic win.
Buy a beer? Epic-Sauce.
Fall on your face? Epic-face.
Free Denny’s pancakes…hopefully the point has been made.

The bottom line is that like the ubiquitous LOL or OMG, both of which whose users are rarely actually partaking in the action, ‘epic’ has become a term detached from it’s true meaning: “far-surpassing the ordinary,” and “of heroic or impressive proportions.”

Well, friends, weep no longer; unless of course you weren’t at the Van’s House Party last Friday night. The players: Pissed Jeans, Screaming Females, Fucked Up and Cro Mags, a veritable pantheon expressing the range and influence of punk and hardcore. All for free.

Screaming FemalesThus in temperamental torrential rains, hundreds stood in line to catch a glimpse of a night of pure intensity, insanity and some delicious Flying Dutch Men fries. And no one seemed to leave disappointed. Matt Korvette of the Screaming Females howled, Marissa Paternoster lived up to her Screaming Females band name. Damian Abraham put on the traditional Fucked Up show, providing high antics and getting up in the faces and literally in with the crowd. Shirtless he paraded around the space, dragging the mic with him to the outside back-lot of the venue while the rest of the band dutifully played on. Cro-Mags’ John Joseph proved he is surely 50 years young, darting around on stage, jumping, and yelling, something often witnessed in his mini-lectures against corporate culture and ‘MTV sell-outs”.

Cro Mags

Fucked Up

Fucked Up

Pissed JeansEven if there were those who could not get down with the line-up, at least you know they likely left with bruises that were extremely, outrageously, probably-shouldn’t-go-into-work-with-this kind-of-wound epic.

Hopefully these pictures capture some of the night’s OMGs, LOLs and epic…greatness.

Cro Mags

Cro Mags

Pissed Jeans

Fucked UpClick HERE for more EPIC pictures!