The Menzingers, The Fighting Cocks, Kingston

The Menzingers’ Greg Barnett there, at the start of the second of two sold out shows at Kingston’s Fighting Cocks venue, proceeding to rally up a crowd that don’t really need rallying up at all.

Main support Tigers Jaw have already done that impeccably. The band, The Menzingers’ fellow Scranton, Pennsylvania natives, have had three members leave this year, leading to the horrible term ‘indefinite hiatus’ being batted around, and somehow these dates have been labelled, not by the band, as their last. When they play ‘a song from our new record’ mid-set, then, it seems the now-two-piece have some life left in them yet. Good job, as songs from their self-titled record sound as fresh and bright as they always have.

The Menzingers produce a live sound and spectacle that not only differs from their recorded output, but sails far and away above it. After all, it’s hard not to respond to a crowd so clearly devoted as this. The Fighting Cocks becomes a sweaty wave of elated bodies immediately for the opening pair of ‘Ava House’ and ‘Good Things’, both taken from the band’s latest album ‘On The Impossible Past’. Parts of the record could be described as polished, but live this is substituted for utter grit.

Even the remaining Tigers Jaw fans, of which there are plenty waiting at the back to finish their pint before departing, are drawn in, and can be seen self-consciously mouthing along about how ‘all good things should fall apart’, no matter how hard they try to stay slumped on the bar. Don’t fight it, guys. Embrace it. Everyone else is, and they’re having the time of their lives.