‘Don't forget your roots’ shouted Toby Morse in the middle of H2O’s set at the Henry Fonda Theater, the frontman couldn’t basically stop talking and preaching (oh I know he would certainly not like this term) about his NYC Hardcore roots and his enthusiasm and energy didn’t seem to have any limit,… ‘Minor Threat changed my life’, he was saying, the hardcore band had already pumped up the crowd before the main act, and there was a guy on my left who knew all the lyrics as he shouted them in unison with the band; but he was far from being the only one.
This was aggressive hardcore, but also happy melodic hardcore, as they couldn’t stop bouncing on stage like some joyous Jacks-in-the-box, being all over the place at the same time,… Morse was sure displaying an enormous amount of energy and the crowd was giving him it back. Even when I know nothing about a band, I always find amazing this kind of phenomenon, this heartfelt exchange with the crowd,… I couldn’t get most of the shouted lyrics, but it was sure in the same vein than the sound, straight-edge positive (Minor Threat oblige), and during his crowd bath, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this guy had hugged a few. I don’t know, there was something very generous and giving about all this eruption of energy.
But god, was Toby Morse a talker! He was talking about his family, his beautiful son, his age, his drug-free body and the importance of being open-minded, he even said ‘Don’t just listen to hardcore, I listened to about everything, from Coldplay, to Rihanna, Madonna’, oh really? But at the same time, we had to stay close to our roots? I guess his roots were all over the place so! But that wasn’t certainly something I could disagree with. As a matter of fact, they did a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’, the 'old school' part of the show, and they were working very hard at being inspirational with their multi-voice shout-out ooo-aaa-ooo choruses.
Talking about the beautiful 10-year-old son – and he was! – the kid was on the back of the stage, and he could have easily stolen the show if more people had seen him,.. he couldn’t stop moving and doing all kinds of hardcore jumping moves like his father, he was drumming like a maniac on a stool, he constantly wanted to talk to his dad, and he jumped behind the real drum set as soon as the show was over! Please just hire the kid, he was damn good, and if this behavior doesn’t tell you that he really wants to be on stage, I don’t know what will,… I actually read that he is making some apparitions on H2O's last record ‘Nothing to Prove’.
H2O was born out of Morse’s desire to give back to the music which helped him so much, and he formed the band in 1995 after being a roadie for NY hardcore band Sick Of It All. These guys have toured with almost everyone, even with No Doubt – they are really open-minded – and this time they were opening for Bad Brains. Hardcore may have saved his life and it was showing at each one of the hard-hitting riffs but quite tuneful songs,… It didn’t seem to have any darkness or paranoia in all this, just pure explosive high energy sing-a-longs, running fast and only interrupted by Toby Morse’s talks to the crowd.