Summer in Kansas City is pretty amazing. Sure it's hot, but summer is supposed to be hot. Embrace it. Find a pool or pick a lake. Hike through the woods or just snooze under a shade tree. Keep it low key with porch beers or do it up on a rooftop deck. But when the sun goes down, find some live music. Friday night I walked past ten thousand fanatics filling the T-Mobile Center for Olivia Rodrigo. A few blocks further I ran into hundreds headed for the Ice Cube concert. I walked past the stopped bus that would have taken me to see the Aggrolites at The Madrid. Tempting, but I had other plans. I was headed to The Brick. The Brick is small bar that draws loyal locals and sometimes stays open late so those same locals can put on a little show. It's not the sort of bar for attractive young bands marching toward fame, it's the sort where you meet up with your friends to watch your other friends play the music that they've spent their whole lives creating.

Second Chance formed in the late 80s in Lawrence playing youth crew-styled hardcore. They're not the progenitors of the sound, but they were contemporaries with everyone on the genre's Mount Rushmore. Respect there. For some mysterious and wonderful reason, the band has decided to reform after 30 years. Don't ask why, just revel in the reprise. While the current rhythm section differs from the band's earliest line up, most of the original band is intact. The act now features Shawn Battles (vocals), Scot Sperry and Ken Nelson (guitars), as well as Shawn Reynolds (bass) and Sean Riley (drums). As the band introduced themselves as Second Chance, a friendly voice in the audience shouted up "third chance." True. The band played a nine-song set. In some hardcore circles that would have taken only ten minutes – twenty if the singer gives the standard unity speech between every song – but Second Chance played for 30 minutes and still skipped the proselytizing. Side quests stretched the band's songs. Sometimes it was a long instrumental opening. Sometimes it was an extended solo dropped by Sperry in the middle of a song. In the straightforward, double-time mosh moments, Battles shouted his vocals in that familiar cadence. Minor Threat. Uniform Choice. Maybe stretching into Dag Nasty territory for a few. Final syllables elongated like Youth of Today. All good places to land. The band's set featured old favorites ("This one is from our 7". Good luck finding it.") and some songs I couldn't locate. New or old, the songs sounded good. Sure, you're not going to get jumps, spin kicks, or stage dives from anyone in the band, and Battles accent shouts often didn't curdle the way they did at the band's last gigs 30 years ago, but you've got to appreciate a lifer. The band ended with "Puppet" from the 7". Like most of the band's songs it deals with the intersection of personal and political. With the need for resistance and a clear mind. In 1989 Battles wrote: But the times have changed / and so have we / The puppet master will never get me / I'm gonna live my life / in my own way / following no rules / I'm on my way. It's a roadmap set 35 years ago and still trod today. True till death.

River City Rejects hit the stage at 11:00 just in time to stave off my yawns. Good timing boys. The three-piece lines up as Cody (vocals, guitar), Johnny (bass, vocals), and Tony (drums, vocals). They don't use last names because last names are for cops and the members of River City Rejects don't like cops. What they do like is street-punk played fast. They like it as fast as they can play it. To be honest, they occasionally like it faster than they can play it. Cody hides under a mop of hair delivering shifting power chords and most of the vocals. They're screamed, their shredded, and maybe a little puked too. Tony has no hair to hide behind. He probably shaved his head so it wouldn't get in his eyes when he drums. Nobody f*cks with the Baldies, man. He's an intense drummer with no time for nuance. Even when Cody introduced the next song as a "country & western" number, Tony pounded the same turbo-charged d-beat. Johnny doesn't have time for niceties either. His lines normally follow the guitar, though a fun lick occasionally appears out of nowhere. I suspect he even plans it that way sometimes. In the middle of the set there were a couple of new songs that mystified him. "I don’t even know this one but I'm going to give it the old college try," he confessed at one point. That one might have been "Johnny J." It has great backing vocals from Tony and plenty of "Oi Oi Oi" action. The band had already played a Cock Sparrer cover and Tony was wearing a 4-Skins shirt so you might want to polish your boots if you're heading to see this Omaha band. I looked down sheepishly and noted that my Sambas could do with a good brush. After Tony delivered a rambling intro calling for unity [take that Second Chance!], the trio ended with "One Family."

Headlining the night were D-Fibs. Yeah, they were surprised too. I've written about the band lots, but they deserve a few more words of praise. The band is punk. Maybe street punk. Maybe not. The four piece is fronted by Tim Nord (vocals), with Paddy Sargent (guitar), Patrick Brown (bass), and Jon Cagle (drums) completing the act. They're middle-aged guys who you saw play in other bands back in the '90s. They've got skill, experience, a modicum of intent, and very few f*cks to give. The set started rough. Nord demured that the band weren't used to being up so late. It stumbled through a cover rife with strong harmonies. Was that a Face to Face song? But after Midnight the band found its second (or third?) wind, and everything came together. The band's punk can be straightforward or surprisingly smart. Loose songs permeated the set, but a new one was surprisingly tight. Sargent and Brown were locked in. I'm guessing that's the one they practiced. Cagle is a fast drummer. One of the foursome's songs is called "Song that Almost Killed Jon" because he had a heart attack playing it at a band practice a few years ago. Before playing it this time, Nord checked in with him. Cagle gave a thumbs up and said, "I've got a fan," and followed it with "I love fan." Safety first. YOLO after all.

Nord is an entertaining frontman. Don't expect much movement beyond a steady, almost anxious pacing of the stage, but he's funny and conversational. To pick up the kinetic slack, three members of the crowd danced happily in front of the stage – one even managed to two-step through the entirety of all three acts. The rest of the audience (two, maybe three dozen) only watched, hooted support, and called out for favorites. The band's reworking of "Too Drunk to F*ck" as "Too Full to F*ck" (the result of glutenous trips to the buffet) is always a hit, but the set is littered with witty, energetic, original punk rock songs with big hooks. The set ended just before 12:30 with "Only Fans Girl." It's the tale of a dude who's sure that the girl he's sending money to is in love with him. Scorn inspires a lot of the band's songs; the rest are about being old. All of it is in good fun though. And all of it makes for a great night out with your friends at your local bar. Enjoy summer while you can.