Despite the catchy lyrics and powerful chord pounding that came from the opening bands at the Canal Club show this past weekend, Authority Zero took the show to the max with its fast grind accented by Jason DeVore’s speedy singing.
They kicked off their set with “A Passage in Time”, which also opens up their CD. Without missing a beat they went right into “Good Ol Days.” “Mesa Town”, a nostalgic song about kicking it with their friends back in their hometown Mesa, Arizona came soon after. Even though they’re on tour, the band said that they don’t really miss home that much. Jason explained, “…we’ll all go home and we’ll be home for like 3 days and we’ll see all of our friends and all of our family and then we’ll be like, ‘All right, lets go!’ and we’ll want to leave again.”
After dousing the audience with their water, and telling them to “Calm it down!” for the millionth time, AZ played a couple more songs from their album and broke it down with “RATTLIN BOGDOWN,” where Jason proved his vocal skills. Like all of the other bands, they played their hit “One More Minute” near the end of the set and sent the crowd riling into the pits. Jason bravely faced the rabid concert goers as he crowd surfed. He was almost swallowed by them in the process. And just when the crowd thought it was all over AZ busted out the old school and played a great cover of “La Bamba.”
AZ blew away all of the preceding bands at the Hi-Five show hosted by Y101 at the Canal Club this past Saturday. Other bands in the lineup were local bands High-Watt, Damone Social Burn, and Trapt. All the bands had great performances that kept the crowd rocking so hard that they had to be reminded to calm down and breathe every once in a while. The Fans started lining up early, but only so many were let in. .Not trying to have the same type of incident that Good Charlotte had with the floor caving in, Y101 actually had to turn their fans and listeners away after they let in their quota of people.
For those who don’t know, AZ has actually been together for almost 9 years. Jim Wilcox, Jason DeVore, Jeremy Wood and Bill Marcks started out playing punk shows This may seem average for a local band, but these boys were very aggressive in their passion for music. On some weeks these guys would play 5 shows along with going to school and holding down part-time jobs, they did everything from telemarketing to pizza delivery. Drummer Jim Wilcox said, “I found this job selling meat door to door with this old man who was like totally into blue grass. I was asleep after four hours of that!”
Although AZ has been compared to the likes of Sublime, they are anything but carbon copies of the legendary band. Their playing styles reflect their interests in such diverse music as flamenco and hardcore. They may not be rock stars in their own eyes, but the people hanging around them were certainly a little star struck. After chilling with them in their RV for over 2 hours it was apparent that these guys weren’t rock stars, just hard working men with a passion for what they do. Their mantra seems to be summed up in the song “Sky’s the Limit”
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