Millencolin (we cropped the drummer out of the shot in the interest of presenting some non-murky detail)

This is not the first time I've seen these guys play. Way back in '96 or so, a tour of four skate punk bands came through my adopted hometown of Bellingham, WA. Millencolin was on the bill, as was Lagwagon, as well as two other bands whose names I can't recall (perhaps because their music sounded exactly like Millencolin and Lagwagon). Back then, Millencolin were little more than a by-the-numbers skate punk band. Although their lyrics may have been a notch above average, their songs, like those of most Fat Wreck-style bands, all blended together in a neck-snapping whir of bracka-bracka drums and a wall o' chugga-chugga guitar, each tune sounding pretty much exactly like the next. However, at some point (presumably before the release of Pennybridge Pioneers), they decided that they were actually a much better band than that, and that they could aspire to more than the same damn breakneck tempo on every song. So, with the appreciation of the new and improved Millencolin under my belt, it's safe to say that I was very, very stoked for this show.

While Millencolin may have evolved handily past their generic poppy punk origins, their taste in opening bands apparently has not. I arrived too late to catch opening act number one (and fellow Swedes), Bombshell Rocks. I'd read a piece on them describing their sound as "street punk", which did little to endear me to the prospect of getting there early to check them out. I caught a few songs by opener number two, Homegrown, who were downright awful -- some of the most banal, annoying, lukewarm Blink 182-styled tripe that I've had the displeasure of witnessing in some time. Feh. Thankfully, I only had to sit through a few songs of their yapping before they vacated the stage. After 15 or 20 minutes of waiting, a giant Millencolin banner was unfurled behind the stage, the boys sauntered onstage and promptly launched into "No Cigar", the lead track from Pennybridge Pioneers. The kids in the front instantaneously transformed themselves into a roiling pit, making me realize how long it had been since I had been to something that could be described as a "punk show". I guess the kids still like to run into each other like the little human bumper cars they are. However, despite the rapturous response from the peanut gallery, something was missing, and I quickly determined what it was -- the bass! Frontman Nikola Sarcevic sure had a bass in his hands, and it sure looked like he was playing it, but I'll be damned if I could hear it! After a minute or two, a point in the song was reached where the bass stood out of the mix for an instant, and while it was there, it revealed itself to be the most boingy-sounding, trebly/midrangey bass tone I've ever heard. The result of this was that the bass, the main function of which is to anchor the song, and lock in tight with the drums to deliver that kick-in-the-chest feeling that the best live rock bands provide, was all but completely subsumed in the wall of guitars. This was not a good thing. Upon looking a bit more closely, it hardly even looked like Sarcevic was even playing the damn thing -- rather, it looked more like he was miming.

To add to this, the band as a whole were less than tight -- while they certainly weren't bad, per se, the overall effect, as I mentioned above, failed to add up to the punch in the gut that I was expecting. For the most part, the band had a lot of energy (excepting guitarist Eric Ohlsson, who apologized for his relative lack of enthusiasm, saying that he "had a flu"), and seemed to be very happy to be up there playing to a big, crowded room full of happy underage punk rockers. Something about it seemed a little off, though -- a little calculated. Perhaps it was the way that guitarist Mathias Farm jumped around making monkey faces, leaping off the stage monitors like some kind of cartoon punk rocker, or perhaps it was the fact that it still didn't look like Sarcevic was actually playing his bass. The result was, unfortunately, rather underwhelming. The kids in the front, of course, didn't seem to notice or care, and the on-stage bouncers handily earned their keep for the evening by manhandling the steady flow of teenage crowdsurfers who ended up on or in close proximity to the stage.

Being the jaded music critic kinda guy that I am, I wanted more. In "Devil Me", from Pennybridge, Sarcevic freely admits "I'm not an ace on bass, it's what I face / But yeah I think it's king to sing" -- and, well, that says it as well as I could. He seriously has one of the best voices, if not the best voice in punk today, marked by equal parts grit, soul, and sincerity, but I'll just have to lay it on the line and say that he's a pretty sub-par bassist. I went back and listened to the record, and while the basslines were nothing fancy, and stuck mainly to root notes, at least they were there, performing their function of fattening up the bottom end of the band's sound. With the bass MIA, the band sounded shrill and sloppy. Sarcevic's vocals were dead-on, and Farm and Ohlsson's guitars were appropriately loud and in your face, but it was not enough. Drummer Fredrik Larzon was not inventive enough to carry the rhythm all by himself, and without the punch of the bass, many of the songs felt flat and lifeless.

On their last few releases, Millencolin have proved that they are far more than your standard boring punk band. Unfortunately, I don't think they've quite figured out how to translate their newfound maturity to a live setting. With a legion of fans who are obviously more concerned with throwing each other around in the mosh pit then they are with the quality of music that their heroes are producing on the stage, it appears that Millencolin doesn't really have the impetus to tighten up their live set, and reproduce, or even (gasp) improve upon their great songs in a live setting. I will, without a doubt, still buy their records (I have a copy of their new disc headed my way even as we speak), but suffice it to say that the next time they come around to play, I won't be quite as excited.

Article and photos by Jeremy Schneyer.