July 11th, 1997: Better Than a Thousand, Battery, Ten Yard Fight, Eyelid, Youngblood @ Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall, Fairless Hills, PA

A month later and another trip back home for the weekend so I can hit this show up. By this time all my friends from high school that I used to go to shows with had either moved away or grown out of hardcore so I went to this one by myself. (There was a pretty good crew of us from Hunterdon Central that would hit up shows every weekend and to this day I'm the only one that is still straightedge and I can count on one hand the number that are at all still somewhat involved in hardcore or punk.) Battery was one of my favorite bands at the time and even though I had been living 40 minutes from DC for a few years, I was without a car for most of that so this was my first time seeing them. This was also my first time getting to see the much-hyped Better Than a Thousand. I don't remember anything about Youngblood (any connection to the label of the same name?). Eyelid did nothing for me. If I remember correctly they were a precursor to Adamantium, and basically sounded like a less realized version of that band. Heavy music but nothing memorable or interesting about it. Ten Yard Fight was probably my least favorite of that late 90s crop of youth crew revival bands. I thought their demo was decent but I'd much rather listen to Floorpunch, In My Eyes, or Atari. I actually don't remember anything about their set from this show. Battery were fucking great. They had a totally different energy than a lot of hardcore bands of the time. They came off as a lot more intelligent and compassionate than most others and that was something I really gravitated towards. "Go Back to the Gym" and "The Factory" were highlights of their set for me. I picked up the navy blue shirt with the vertical stripes on the front and the DC flag and "where it all began" print on the back at this show. Most people seem to be more into the tour shirt but green/yellow were never my colors. Better Than a Thousand were pretty excellent at this show. The first album was out and everyone knew the words front to back. I do remember thinking Ray's choice of track pants as attire was a bit goofy. What can I say? I'm a jeans or cut-offs and a t-shirt kinda guy. If I remember correctly the pics used for the Value Driven layout were from this show. This was a great venue for a big hardcore show. Spacious, but not too big, with a nice sized stage. I feel like I remember a couple other shows getting booked here around the time but I can't remember if they actually happened or not.