Ceremony was the first act I saw early Sunday afternoon at the FYF Fest, and I can’t say that either their fist-in-the-air energy, or frontman Ross Farrar’s sick delivery were a surprise for me; it was the third time I was seeing the Northern California hardcore punk band,… although I am not sure they are totally hardcore.
Their set was efficient and the energy level was maintained throughout their 15-short-song set, thanks to the participation of a crowd doing it usual moshing-surfing, but let me rephrase this,… yes there was energy but it was a much sicker and drunker one than usual, it was a far less triumphant show than their last FYF performance at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts last March. Farrar was moving like a beaten down old man, he was squirming like a fish out of water, limping like a hurt man and bending over like someone with a terrible stomach ache! He was screaming and aching, dying above the mic while spiting the energy of despair.
They started by ‘Repeating the Circle’ off their ‘Zoo’ album, and continued with older ones, and played only a few others off ‘Zoo’; but they also did a new song entitled ‘Everything Burns’,… 'buuuuuuurrrrrnnnns' as Farrar shouted out, enigmatically adding the song wasn’t on the Instagram or the Playstation?
Farrar was fast at jumping in the pit and I feared a minute it would be another Fucked Up repeat, with him hiding from view the whole time, but no he went back on stage, walking and almost falling at each step, releasing a dark energy under this bright hot sun. While the other members of the band were ferociously unleashing power-guitar-riffs, mean bass lines and stop-and-start action, he was the half-naked tattooed freak, making horror faces, laying flat on stage for a few minutes, and dying a few times.
‘For the hardcore kids’, he said before ‘I Want to Put This to an End/Kersed’, two songs off their album ‘Violence, Violence’, ah yeah, this time it was true hardcore and ravaging aggression.
Setlist
Repeating the Circle
Sick
M.C.D.F.
Terminal Addiction
Pressure's On (Red C cover)
World Blue
Open Head
Hysteria
The Doldrums (Friendly City)
Citizen
The Difference Between Looking and Seeing
Living Hell
Everything Burns
I Want to Put This to an End