I Had The Privilege To See The Chariot Live!

My camera on my phone sucks, but I got this decent, if not evil looking picture of Josh Scogin just before The Chariot began their set.

But before I get into The Chariot, you might want to know how the opening bands did.

First up was Listener, which for this night was just Dan Smith, who is a good friend of Josh, and did guest vocals on 'David De La Hoz'. I didn't know who Listener was until that song, but he's a weird but fantastic guy. Very humble too. It was a bit of an honor to see him perform. Again, my phone sucks, but the audio on this video I go is listenable. It's Dan doing a vocals only version of 'Building Better Bridges' from Wooden Heart.

He get really into his songs. The room was dead quiet when he performed, and exploded with cheers upon every song ending. Josh Scogin came out about 3 songs in and started playing guitar with Dan. You could tell they are really good friends.Listener is great, and you should look up his stuff on Spotify or on bandcamp here.

Dan's performance was the longest of the 5 bands too, approaching 45 minutes If I remember correctly. Really good stuff.

Following Listener was a band called The Greenery, who wee filling in for The Crimson Armada. I'd never heard of The Greenery until the show, but man did they put on a crazy show. When they were setting up the Vocalist (Whose name I think is Matt. Or Brandon. I got confused during the show.) hopped off stage and dragged the mic cord down to make sure he'd have to enough to scream while participating in the circle pit he started. It was crazy, but fun. At one point his mic cord wrapped around my head and almost pulled me to the ground. These guys were more old school hardcore and got really into the pit.

After The Greenery was Former Thieves, who I had only heard a few songs from. Unfortunately, for some reason the mixing was off during these guys set and the guitars were insanely loud, and the vocals were not audible. I think I got tinnitus from these guys guitars being so loud. I could tell they had talent, but the mixing was bad, which isn't their fault really.


Once they finished, we got Vanna. Who are a bit more well known than the previous three. These guys also put on a hell of a show, and were really into the mosh pit, although they never jumped into the pit like the vocalist from the Greenery. They got a good reception from the crowd and were pretty enjoyable to watch.

Which leads me to the headliner and highlight of my evening, The Chariot. Josh is a pretty funny guy. During sound check he did he made a family guy reference by screaming a Stewie quote into the mic (the "mama, mama, mama, Lois, Lois, Lois, mom, mom, mom" one.) Which was pretty awesome. Then just before they started Josh put on Leadbelly's 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night' which coincidentally me and some friends used for a short film thats on youtube, but unfotunately has no sound becuase of copyright problems. But that's besides the point. Josh demanded the song be played in it's entirety before the set started, and it was cool that other people besides me knew the song and were also singing along. Then at the end of that song, Josh extremely quickly said hi and, in The Chariot manner, a  song explosively started. I honestly cannot remember the order in which songs were played because it all happened so fast and I was thrown in and out of the crazy mosh pit. (They played these songs, not in this order though: Teach, Daggers, Evan Perks, The Audience, Abandon intro, My Generation (The Who cover), The Heavens, Calvin Mackenzie, The City, Back To Back, The Deaf Policemen, And Shot Each Other, Phil Cosby, David De La Hoz. Thanks to Mark Renkens for the list.) These guys are excellent showman. they really get into it. Their bass player is insane too. He jumped into the crowd multiple times and flailed about while somehow still playing bass. He also threw in bass into the crowd at one point and it crowd surfed back. Josh had a few funny quips in between songs. At one point he said "Thank you. We are Bob Dylan." to which one person yelled out "Bob Dylan sucks!" gaining a death stare from Scogin along with "HEY! We do not suck!". Later he claimed to be Johnny Cash and thanked us for not going to the Skrillex concert in the house of blues nearby.

At the end of the show, a bunch of us got on stage and moshed to the final song, of which I'm not sure what it was because I was deafened by the amp behind me. But right as the song ended, I noticed that Dan Smith was standing next to me, I patted him on the shoulder and told him he was awesome, and then he gave me a hug. Which was the best part of the night for me. Dan's literally the man.

Overall this was a fantastic concert. The Chariot are like no other. It's a intense show during which you almost lose yourself. If you ever get a chance to see them, take it. Chance are you'll only be about $15 too.

Long Live The Chariot.