Punk Rock Bowling 2021: Day 3

Help! We weren’t ready!

Day 3 and we’re as dead as disco. We must make it, FOR DEVO!

The Twits

Your new favorite band is The Twits! Not only are they just like Wu-Tang and for the children, but they’re by the children… THEY ARE THE CHILDREN!

A three piece that comes out of The School of Rock show off a great sound that every person in the crowd was behind from the first beat. Getting to a point where they sound almost like Incubus with their soft but twangy guitar solos, all backed by heavy hitting bass and drums, but Camden’s almost Evanescence-esk vocals stand front-in-center for everyone to be in awe of.

“Tell Me I’m Wrong” stood out with some AFI style “woes” and capping the set with “Lost My Mind” left everyone in chills. You could see people coming out of every corner of the venue to see the spectacle that is The Twits and we’re sure they’ll be on a full headline tour of their own soon.

Babe Patrol

“God, it’s hot out here. We don’t have this in New York, it just smells like garbage.”

Tucked far away from us in the east coast comes Babe Patrol with an opening act that gets you moving no matter how many days PRB has been kicking your ass! Packed with singalongs and crowd participation, the were fun time with the Hooligan Happy Hour to mosh around and kick back some brews.

Singer Jewels commands a fun ship. Telling he crowd “This next song is about having a vagina, and it being a problem. So when I say ‘vagina’, you say….”

And the crowd instinctively reacts with, “Problem!”

“Sweet, you’re in the band!”, she let us know before screaming our new moto of the day

Crazy & The Brains

Is that a fucking xylophone? Holy shit, my man has a fucking xylophone!

Crazy & The Brains take this crusty style to an entirely new level that I’ve been waiting for. I imagine some kind of crazy origin story that involves an elementary school music program but we can get past that, this guy absolutely shreds the xylophone!

Besides that wonderful perk, Crazy & The Brains take a N.Y. underground rocksteady style to a range of things like socio-political issues and ice cream, you know, the things the people really care about.

A Tour with Dayz N Dayz brings them along for a wild ride to PRB and we were impressed by the stop. We know this won’t be the last we see of Crazy & The Brains.

The Last Gang

Another Fat Wreck powerhouse makes their way to the main stage with The Last Gang, and this is another set we’ve been waiting for at PRB since their last appearance at the fest for a Locked In and Stripped Down Session during quarantine. So its time to get up and go with Brenna Red and the boys live!

Ken Aquino is a new addition on guitar and holy shit does he make an impact! Solid lead guitar by him just punches at you, and while hearing it live reminded me exactly of old school Sum 41. Turns out Ken worked with producer Cameron Webb who did work with the great Motorhead and none other than… Sum 41!

This shows off tough in their new single “Gimmie Action” and it goes hard. Their new album Noise Noise Noise drops everywhere on October 8, 2021 so be sure to check it out.

Bridge City Sinners

What a haunting tale. The Bridge City Sinners bring their sideshow all the way from PBX to the city where anyone is welcome, especially the sinners!

What seems to be the sounds of a shipwreck that made it’s way to a 1800’s Northeast Coast seaside saloon radiate from the Monster Energy Stage where you can’t help but smile as the creep through “The Witches Wrath” and “The Sirens Song”.

The Schizophonics

Somebody wore heir blue suede shoes today! We agree when The Schizophonics say they aren’t punk rock, but it’s like in Back to the Future:

“Chuck! It’s Marvin! You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to this!”

The Scitzophinics sound like Little Richard and Barry Gibb had a sweet soul baby together but singer/guitar player Pat Beers is on a entire other level than the rest of us. This must be how people felt when they saw Jimi drop 10 hits and play his guitar with his butthole, or something like that.

Besides sound from the guitar, drummer Lety Beers absolutely destroys the skins for the beats that lead this crazy train. You’ll be able to find The Schizophonics on festial lineupes around the nation so be sure to check for them no matter where you are, you never know where they’ll pop up.

MDC

Millions of Dead Cops, Missile Destroyed Civilization, Multi-Death Corporation, Male Dominated Culture, Marine Death Corps, name it what you want but MDC is here to make sure we never forget that John Wayne was a Nazi!

We’ve been gifted this year with appearance by the great MDC at a Club Show after Club Show and now on The Monster Energy Stage for the main festival.

ALL

Couldn’t get enough of Descendent from the other night? Can you every?!

Bill, Karl, and Stephen are back with Chad Price to present the ALLmighty, ALL-being, ALL_Loving… ALL!

Riverboat Gamblers

“Just keep screaming out, I’m still not dead yet!”

The Riverboat Gamblers make heir way back to PRB where we were waiting with open arms. Singer Mike Wiebe who splits his time with the Club Show Act Drakulas and also does stand-up comedy took over the Punk Rock Bowling IG to show off his beautiful mustache and take us through a backstage journey of the fest.

They kept the crowd moving through “True Crime” and into ‘The Art of Getting Fucked Up” to cap off he set where the side stage turned into a wild fucking party!

The Murder City Devils

Say what you will about Spencer Moody, but if you come to Murder City Devils show expecting him to be a standup guy you can chat and have a beer with, you must not know how Murder City Devils sound.

The words that come from Spencer have been brought up from a deep, dark place that requires much encouragement from alcohol to see the light of day. So if he is piss the pants drunk for a set of songs that he was piss the pants drunk while he was writing, I have absolutely no problem with it.

The haunting keyboard that plays through “Press Gang” and “18 Wheels” will forever leave your hips in a shake. Spencer not trying to make it through a verse without a mix-up is an entertaining thing to see happen, but even when he trails off it somehow works. Just as long as the instruments keep on track he just makes it back, eventually.

The chaotic spectacle The Murder City Devil have brought us will go down in history as the grittiest form of punk that could come. Sit back and just let it happen while it can, because things will come to a crashing end eventually.

English Beat

The Great and Powerful Beat! Dave Wakeling is here to make sure your dance shoes are still strapped up so pick up those feat and pick up those feat and pick up those feat!

Lunachicks

The fucking Lunachicks are at Punk Rock Bowling! If you think it’s been a long time since most of these bands played, how about your last show being CBGB in 2002? Yeah, that’s where the Lunachicks are, but they have no problems hiding it.

Like they had never missed a beat right through “F.D.S” and “Dear Dotti”, they proved it with the crowd through “Bad Ass Bitch” that Lunachicks are back!

Ending things with “Luxury Problem” and “Down at the Pub” we couldn’t help but have a shit eating grin from ear to ear knowing that just happened, and we still have two more to go!

Municipal Waste

The skies opened up and the Thrash Gods poured down a rain of beer. This can mean only on thing, Muni is here to send us into the waste pit of puke one last time!

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. If you hadn’t had a beer thrown on you or weed smoke injected into your eyes then you were too far back and should just pour one on yourself at this point to join the party.

Fan favorites “Beer Pressure” and “Sadistic Magician” made their way into the set, capped off by the anthem “Born To Party” that sent us back to the stone ages for what was about to come next. After leaving the decay from the party we dragged our knuckles over to the main stage for the sermon.

Devo

The moment every mongoloid on this planet has waited for. The time has come for DEVO to send us home!

The Punk Rock crowd that you can always here with a rumbling during the weekend of “But DEVO? You Mean the Whip It guys, right? Why are they at PRB?” are about to get their mind blown by the elctrconic sounds of DeEvolution!

Starting with a journey through our modern days in “Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man)” then into the classic catalog that has plagued our ears for years with “Peek-A-Boo” and of course “Whip It”, all accompanied by the most Punk Rock visual light show behind them that looked like it was animated on a Macintosh Color Classic.

Shutting the festival down the the great “Freedom of Choice” reminds us just how lucky we were that this festival happened to begin with. As long as there is DEVO there will be hope, and as long as there is Punk Rock Bowling, you’ll find ZRockR there covering it.

Photos of The Twits by Vinnie Corcoran used with permission. All other photos by Courtney Ware for ZrockR Magazine 2021, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.