Are the best shows defined by flawless performances, or are there other, more important factors? I've seen ten thousand good performances, but if I didn't obsessively catalog them on Too Much Rock, I'd have no memory of most of them. I'm sure that the best shows are about something other than just musical proficiency, but I have only a vague sense of what those factors are. Sometimes a show reveals a new metric – something I hadn't even considered in my "best shows" equation before. And that happened to me at the RecordBar last week.

I first saw Skuffed a year and a half ago. It was their second show ever. They were at the RecordBar opening for a legacy hardcore act from the '80s. The bill didn't make much sense to me at the time, but now I'm beginning to recognize a pattern. The current incarnation of the foursome doesn't much resemble the version that played that night. Members have changed and the group has found its unique voice. I was due for a refresher. Currently the band lines up as Marion Waltrip (vocals), Macy Rae (guitar), Kody Stadler (bass), and Sid Vargas (drums). X's still adorned their hands indicating they're not old enough to drink. However, in the KC hardcore scene, a project nearing two years old is practically geriatric. I was excited to see what they learned in that time. The updated version was sludgy – seemingly written for slow-motion, creepy-crawlers moving across a pit. But the mix was off. Stadler's bass was low; unless he was playing a solo (and there were a few), I felt it clearer than I heard it. Rae's guitar was similarly inaudible. I pulled out my earplugs to check if they were the issue, but with or without them, all I could hear were the loud pops from Vargas’s snare drum.Yet somehow, even without being able to detect any of their l instruments, the room was filled with their spooky din. Sorcery! Waltrip's vocals were the exception. They were loud and sickening – vomited up in witchy screeches. When she sang her face was twisted into a repulsed frown. The scowl didn't go away when she lowered the microphone to pace the stage. John Brannon of Negative Approach would have been proud. Well, actually, he would have just scowled, but that's the point. Faster-paced hardcore punk broke through the hazy sludge during most of the songs in the band's seven-song set. "Cut off Your Hands," in particular, peaked in a quick mosh part. That track, like four others played, is available on a cassette released through Dirtbag Distro earlier this year. The short set also included a new untitled one making its stage debut, and a cover of "Someone's in the House" by Lumpy and the Dumpers that served as the closer. Skuffed's set once again served as a peculiar appetizer, but the quartet made its point, impressing the audience that had clearly come for the touring acts. That's always a win.

The break between performers was a short one – amps were already backlined and the drumkit was shared. Soon the sandaled and dreadlocked Bobby Sullivan walked on stage. He's fronted Soulside since its inception in 1986 – maybe for a few more years if you count the band's earlier incarnation as Lunch Meat. There have substantial breaks over the years where he played in other projects (Rain Like the Sound of Trains was important to me), continued his education, worked with Food Not Bombs and Anarchist Black Cross, and learned from those involved in groups calling for radical change like MOVE, Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground. I recommend his book, Revolutionary Threads: Rastafari, Social Justice, and Cooperative Economics, to everyone. He's been an important figure in my life for 35 years, but always from afar. Guitarist Scott McLoud, bassist Johnny Temple, and drummer Alexis Flesisig are just as impressive. After Soulside, this trio reformed as Girls Against Boys, riding the post-Nirvana major label wave around the world. Temple remains one of my favorite bassists of all time. I don't fanboy often, but it's hard to write about Soulside without (over)sharing my admiration.

The foursome opened with the explosive "Trigger" from the 1988 EP of the same name. The eleven songs that followed drew mostly from the 1989 LP Hot Bodi-Gram. While the band is pedigreed DC Hardcore, by this era it was bored of shouted slogans, the race for speed, and breakdowns, instead building a sound that matched intensity with an unfamiliar and unsettling moodiness. It's the sound that helped launch post-hardcore. Much of that tension was created by Temple's bass lines that pulled the songs forward via inventive runs. He was pleasingly loud in the mix. McCloud moved well with his guitar, stepping back to his amp for harmonics or crunch, stepping forward for driving bits or to add backing vocals. During "Under the Glare" (originally a Lunch Meat song from 1986) Fleisig pushed the tempo with rolling fills. "What Do You Know About That?" was wonderful and I literally cried during "Name in Mind." They were the highlights. Sullivan's lyrics were overtly political in his early work, but by this era, they had become more veiled. In interviews he said he thought that dropping the cudgel might be a better way to create change. In the three songs performed from 2022's reunion album A Brief Moment in the Sun, his lyrics were again transparently political, although now presented with some nuance and reflection. But there was no ambiguity when Sullivan delivered an anti-fascist screed between songs. Soulside ended its set by paying tribute to the DC scene that birthed it: first a cover of Bad Brains' "I Against I" and then of Egg Hunt's "Me and You." The first was fiery, the latter smoldering. Both were presented with affection and awe unexpected for a band nearly 40 years into its career.

There was a long, bewildering break between acts, during which the PA played my favorite songs. It's possible that someone was playing a mix tape I had shyly hoisted on a crush in 1990. I figured any girl who didn’t love Minor Threat and Dag Nasty as much as I did probably wasn't worth my time. That turned out to be a mistake.

Fellow DC hardcore legends Scream took the stage at 9:45. The four-piece currently includes originalists Pete Stahl (vocals), Franz Stahl (guitar), and Skeeter Thompson (bass) playing alongside late additions Graham "Gizz" Butt (guitar) & Andrew Black (drums). Scream's history reaches further back into DC's hardcore roots, making them contemporaries to Minor Threat, Government Issue, State of Alert, and others from the fertile DC scene in the early '80s. For those outside of the hardcore scene, Scream is only the answer to a trivia question about drummer Dave Grohl who played with the group from 1986 until its break up in 1990. Thankfully, after a brief twenty-year pause the band reunited for a series of victory laps. Finding the magic again, it wrote and released an album of new material in 2023, and now the act is on tour, doing it much the same way they did over 40 years ago.

The set started with one from the new album. It followed that with second from the new album. And then a third. The group was making a clear statement about its intent and about its faith in the new material. Like much of the band's catalog, the songs were all over the place. Some leaned heavily into rock. Some were stereo-typical hardcore with lots of "woah oh oh" backing vocals. "Laissez-Faire" balanced melody and chaos so well I wondered if Husker Du and Scream ever crossed paths. Anything was fair game. Pete Stahl pulled out an acoustic guitar for several songs. A harmonica for another. Thompson's bass was unruly, sometimes slapped, sometimes picked, and often pinging brightly. Guitars buzzed from both sides of the stage. Black pounded his drums. Maybe the mix wasn't right, but the energy was high. Stahl stayed at the edge of the stage singing to the audience or holding the mic out for them to sing to him. Journeyman guitarist Gizz Butt trashed and jumped about putting on a hell of a show. That says something as the guy played the biggest stages in the world with Prodigy at their peak in the '90s. This was a Thursday night show in Missouri to sixty fans. Still, this is where the quintet seemed at home. Pete Stahl remembered the early days, wistfully recalling $4 shows. When someone pointed out that times have changed, and that the band doesn’t sleep on floors when touring anymore, Stahl quipped that the foursome was booked at a Super 8 in Osceola, Iowa later that night, and that the difference was pretty insignificant. The man has a point.

Stahl's interaction with the audience turned out to be the highlight of the show. Despite the group's penchant for quick-paced hardcore, he was in no hurry. He took time to tell stories, to talk directly to audience members, and even to bring Keith Patterson up onto the stage. Patterson booked the band in 1983 at a VFW hall in Kansas City. It was an early tour for the act, and Stahl still remembered the details. Maybe that's because the Replacements headlined. Wouldn't that have been an amazing show to be at? Stahl interviewed Patterson about the show. And about later ones they played at Foolkiller and The Outhouse. They also spoke about Dave Howard who owned KC's original punk record store, Rock Therapy, and how the early Kansas City punk scene coalesced around Howard's shop. Patterson was shy and tried to get off the stage several times. He tried to tell the Stahl that the audience was there to see Scream perform. Stahl knew better – or at least he knew there'd be time for that later – he understood that the audience had also come to remember. Or in my case, to learn. Stahl was wearing a DC Punk Archive shirt, so it's safe to say he understands the importance of stories and a shared culture. Taking the time during the show to lift the people in our scene was incredible – and something I didn’t even know I needed. But I did. Scream may not have played their songs flawlessly, but this was still one of the best shows I've ever seen.