idk. if you used this site as a microcosm to judge it, they'd be millionaires. i was never into them so i'm far from the best judge of their status.
A bands gotta eat. I don't blame any one for getting back together to make money. If you don't like it, don't support it. Are RATM hypocrites? Probably. Will I pay hundreds of dollars to go see them? Definitely.
i can't blame zach if he needs some money buy land to prevent a border wall from being built or to buy a jet ski. life's life.
Yeah, that was the 401 House. If you lived in Harrisonburg, you probably definitely ended up drunk there at more than one point. That house had a ton of shows, including a few Macrock showcases. Hot Water Music also played there on the night that the last Seinfeld episode aired. i got to the show and was informed that they were down the street watching it and that the show would start shortly after it was over. Fun times. Tony Weinbender (ex-Swank, currently one of the main dudes behind Fest) lived there too. It's actually sad to think about that Refused show. They only got three songs into their set before the show was shut down. I skipped the show because it was on a weeknight and I had to work the next morning and my band at the time was supposed to play with them (and Catharsis) in Winston Salem a few weeks later and I figured i'd just see them then. Obviously that didn't happen.
Damn. I was a student at JMU from 2007 to 2011 so a lot of that music history in Harrisonburg is from before my time there. That story about Hot Water Music is A+...Macrock was a different beast altogether when I was there aside from my freshman year when we had Owen, Aloha, Anathallo, and Unwed Sailor play on campus IIRC. After that (and still to this day, I believe), it was entirely DIY run by a primarily student group. Those mid-2000 era lineups looked ridiculous. 2003 especially...Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, Hopesfall, Mastodon. [OLD]MACRoCk 2003 - Music Discussions And that sucks you missed Refused at that time. I'd have loved to be able to have seen them during that era and not during their initial reunion runs earlier in the decade. You gotta take what you can get.
The first year I went to Macrock, the first band I saw that day (sometime around 5 pm on the first day) was The Get Up Kids. It's been a long time so my memory about who played which show and which year may be foggy but if I remember correctly, Avail played that same show. Over the years, when it still had support from WXJM, I saw Converge, Hopesfall, Spitfire, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Songs: Ohia, Grade, The Rocking Horse Winner, Onelinedrawing, Joshua, Strike Anywhere, Chamberlain, Engine Down, Minus The Bear, Saves The Day, Denali and so many more. Granted, some of those bands are local but still carried a lot of weight. Even though it's been a DIY fest for a while now, they still get some good bands. I'm just glad that it still happens. Losing the support of WXJM was a major blow.
New Division of Mind track. Yeah. The pull of WXJM happened literally right before I started at JMU and WXJM itself. I worked at the radio station for 4 years and got to see the Macrock folks do some cool stuff when their budgets and resources were much more constrained. Off the top of my head, I got to see Young Widows, Coliseum, Magrudergrind, Cannabis Corpse...among others. The major highlight for me was seeing The Bouncing Souls and The Menzingers play a music store at Macrock in 2011. I'm impressed they managed to pull that together in hindsight all things considered.