The waiting game

April 4th Take Offense, Cold Stare, World Eater +1 in Duisburg. Until the very last minute I was contemplating wether I should go to that show or not. It is about an hour drive from where I live and no one wanted to tag along. Besides that I wasn't and still ain't too thrilled about Take Offense's latest full length, World Eater in general and not to mention a support band I had never heard of before. Cold Stare on the other hand is one of the best current hardcore bands and all the earlier Take Offense stuff slays as well.
As you might have guessed I did go and ended up seeing what felt like two different shows because the US people had just arrived in Amsterdam that very same day and were running 'a little' late which caused a break of about two hours between the first two bands that played and the second part of the night consisting of sets by Cold Stare and Take Offense.
During the break I checked out the distros but I only found one record. A good one though:

Done Dying - shelf life 7" - 2013 Reaper Records RR63

I was hoping to come across a copy of this release even before I knew what this band sounds like. All it took for me to take heed of Done Dying was knowing that Dan O'Mahony fronts the outfit and Mike Hartsfield plays guitar. Two people that played in loads of bands of which none is bad. They're not all great but still good enough to be worth having in your collection. Naturally I have to get at least a copy of each record they put out when it presents itself to me.

Unfortunately this is not the best band these dudes ever played band. Still better though than most other current bands everybody seems to be siked about. If I see a copy of the red vinyl pressing I'll buy that too.

Due to the lack of records available at the show that I take an interest in I indulged in nostalgia and grabbed a copy of this

I still have a few OG copies of this fanzine from back in the days when me and my 'friends' went to shows in Belgium all the time. Being able to pick up all of them in the form of a book and reading them again back home made the trip even more worthwhile. A true document of its time and place in the history of european hardcore and my own life. I'm just glad I was young when these originally hit the streets. Today I have to chuckle going through these pages again. Still I don't want to miss any of it and the whole thing is chockfull of memory triggers. Reliving the golden (and not so golden) days of my younger years all over again. Thank you for putting it all together in one place. And thank you for selling it at that show. It's sad that these days current releases are not readily available at shows anymore. For some reason it gets rare for distros to set up at gigs. Why is that? Where is the youth of today and what are they doing besides pretending to be professional promoters / label bosses / online journalists?