Chicago Hardcore Shows of the Past: Gorilla Biscuits Reunion w/ Murphy's Law at The Clearwater Theater, West Dundee, IL

This show was a lot of fun. The night was buzzing with all sorts of rumors concerning the Gorilla Biscuits reunion. The Clearwater Theater venue itself is a large old theater that can fit a lot of people, and by the looks of it, this thing was almost sold out. They packed em in like sardines, it literally took about 5 minutes to walk from the front of the stage to the bar area, which was also ridiculously crowded. Keep in mind that this was a fairly long time and I was stoned and a little drunk, so I'm recreating this experience from a somewhat impaired memory. To tell you the truth in this case I remember more about the vibe and the atmosphere in these incidences rather than the particulars of how each band played musically. I remember Few and The Proud opening up the show, getting a decent response from all the local Chicago Hardcore kids. Stabbed by Words was up next and I don't remember a thing about their set, it must not've been very good. Everyone's favorite party band "Murphy's Law" was up next. They were all drunk as shit and acting goofy. Apparently it was Jimmy Gestapo's birthday and someone brought him a cake which he promptly threw into the audience haha. Then he proceeded to walk along the bar to the Comeback Kid merch table and started throwing their merch out into the crowd for free! Haha. I didn't care because I don't like watered down crap like CK anyway. This stunt was really funny though.

The Gorilla Biscuits were up next. Surprisingly the crowd thinned out a bit cuz a lot of the new jack kids left after Comeback Kid. The 'Biscuits had their OG lineup for this tour which was cool. They were FOR SURE just doing the reunion for the money, all their merch was marked up pretty crazy like 20 bucks per shirt which wasn't cool. The designs were fairly ugly too. No way I'm paying that much for that. The Gorilla Biscuits did play a pretty fun show. They played all the favorites, had decent enough energy for "old dudes". There was a huge barricade up and despite this, people were attempting to dive which was very dangerous, as the stage was really high and the barricade pretty long. My friend Diego's sister broke her wrist doing her first stage dive (Definately not the smartest setup to start your stage diving career with.). She ended up ok in the end, which was good cuz I guess a lot of people wee worried because it looked like she took a bad fall. Anyways, this show was good fun. The venue was kind of weird but you can't be too picky for places to put on huge shows like this. As always, props to Shane Merrill for making this happen. Dude is a hardcore all-star and books the majority of the good shows in the Chicago Hardcore/Metal scene.