The Menzingers at Brooklyn Steel
photo by Stephanie Augello

The Menzingers, Tiny Moving Parts & Daddy Issues @ Brooklyn Steel (pics, review)

The Menzingers rocked Brooklyn Steel with a Black Friday show on November 23. Supported by Minnesota emo trio Tiny Moving Parts and Nashville three-piece Daddy Issues, the night was a loud triage of variations on punk rock.

Tiny Moving Parts are a band I think you really need to see live to fully appreciate. Their records don’t do their performances justice, even though 2016’s Celebrate is a great album. Lead singer and guitarist Dylan Matthiesen has become a joy to watch over the years. This show was no different. Rapid arpeggios, finger picking and hyper speed strumming are all accompanied by constant motion when Mattheisen performs.

The Brooklyn Steel crowd wasn’t quite as into the act as when TMP opened for The Wonder Years at the PlayStation theater earlier this year. That may have something to do with the intrinsic tie between those two bands — Tiny Moving Parts has been playing with The Wonder Years for half a decade’s worth of tours at this point, and the fanbases overlap as those shows are how many were introduced to Tiny Moving Parts.

The Menzingers have become a staple of East Coast punk rock. With a sound like Springsteen meets the Clash and leather jackets to match, The Menzingers hail from Scranton but represent the Philly, Boston, and Jersey scenes wrapped into one. Dual frontmen and songwriters Greg Barnett and Tom May came from humble beginnings from the Scranton scene, but these days they’re headlining large venues like Brooklyn Steel to rapturous fans.

They opened with two tracks from their most recent record, 2017’s After the Party, beginning with the title track and following with “House on Fire,” with Tom and Greg switching off vocal duties in between the two. They did the same for a pair of tracks from their 2012 masterpiece On the Impossible Past, “Good Things” and “Burn After Writing.” The show roughly maintained this pattern throughout and kept the energy high and the songs loud.

The Menzingers sounded phenomenal. The guitar solos were crisp and the harmonies were on point. Despite Barnett’s songs often being the singles and fan favorites, May is the obvious frontman, taking place center stage. When Barnett takes the lead, May hypes the crowd up, and sings along to Barnett’s lyrics with a smile on his face. The crowd responded in kind. At one point I was nailed in the head by a crumpled beer can. At another May had to tell the crowd to stay safe and not throw any more punches. It was that kind of night.

The setlist mostly consisted of tracks from After The Party and On The Impossible Past with a few key selections from 2014’s Rented World peppered in, including singalongs “I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore” and “In Remission.” May also introduced and sung “The Freaks,” a one-off single released earlier this year. As someone who loves Chamberlain Waits and the older Menzingers sound, it was a bummer not to hear a single song performed off that album. Recent albums have sanded down rough edges for bigger choruses that make more sense in the context of a headlining show like this one, but still it was a disappointment. The one bone they did throw longtime fans was “Irish Goodbyes,” an old non-album track off a Run for Cover compilation.

The Menzingers wrapped up with a more mellow encore, by their standards at least. “Midwestern States” led into “Gates” before the band exhaled and gave it their all for finale “Tellin Lies.”

Pictures of Friday’s show are in the gallery above. Check out a video and the full setlist below.

The Menzingers at Brooklyn Steel – 11/23/18 Setlist (via)
After the Party
House On Fire
Good Things
Burn After Writing
Lookers
Thick as Thieves
Rodent
Ava House
The Obituaries
Your Wild Years
Mexican Guitars
Nice Things
In Remission
The Freaks
Bad Catholics
I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore
Irish Goodbyes
Casey

Encore:
Midwestern States
Gates
Tellin’ Lies

photos by Stephanie Augello