I hadn’t seen I Fight Dragons on tour since Warped Tour three or four years ago (I missed an opportunity to see them at MagFest a couple years ago), but I really enjoyed that set and I’ve been enjoying their work on their new album. They’ve been sharing the progress of songs from acoustic roughs to rhythm roughs, and so on. It’s been a lot of fun to see how the songs evolve. Tickets were only $15 and it was at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, so I figured I’d go check it out.

For quite some time now I’ve really been enjoying discovering new, local bands by getting there when the show starts and this show did not disappoint. The Baltimore locals in Rare Candy were the opening band. They do rock covers of old video game music. The set opened with Mario castle music and ended with an amazing cover of music from Donkey Kong Country. I ended up nabbing their CD that had the most games I enjoyed from my childhood including Mario Kart, Sonic 2 and 3, Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario World. I’ve got a few different video covers that I’ve bought over the years from bands like Tanuki Suit Riot or The Oneups. Each one brings a slightly different interpretation to the cover. What I enjoyed the most about Rare Candy was their rock sensibility. In fact, this is one of those times where I enjoyed the live set more than the well-mastered CD. The guitars (rhythm and bass) both took center stage at the concert and really just added a deep menace to the Mario castle songs. It was a LOT of fun.

The next group was a rap group that I didn’t enjoy, but part of that was just the mix making it a bit hard to follow all the lyrics. From what I could hear it sounded like they were doing some neat wordplay.

Then it was time for headliner #1: Mc Lars. For the most part, the only exposure I had to his music was Download this Song from a Nerdcore collection I got a few years ago and in the I Fight Dragons concert video where he joined them on stage for The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth. I was impressed and entertained by Mc Lars. Like MC Frontalot (and unlike MC Plus+), his rhymes seemed to celebrate geekiness and spread a general positivity. Sure, to some degree the posturing of Mc Plus+ and SpamTec is more in the spirit of the branch of rap that is about machismo and declaring that you’re awesome and everyone else sucks.

But I find that to be tiresome and I tend to listen more often to more positive tracks. So it was a relief that MC Lars just wanted everyone to have a good time. I didn’t know he had a song about Edgar Allan Poe, but it was pretty appropriate to be in Baltimore for that one. The highlight of his set was when he had a skanking (ska dancing) contest on stage in which no one really lost. He ended up giving everyone at least a CD for participating and the winners (there were four) got t-shirts.

Then it was finally time for the band I came there to see – I Fight Dragons. They had a killer set – I enjoyed it a lot more than their set at Warped Tour. Part of that was because for Warped Tour they were on the stage where each band gets half an hour. Here they did more like 45 minutes or so. The set was a great mix of their music from their earliest stuff through to a song from the new (as yet unreleased) Patreon album and some B-Sides from The Near Future. The energy was great and it was a tiny club where anywhere in there was a great place to be standing. As I predicted to some Lars fans I met there, MC Lars joined them for The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth. But the best part for me was when they officially ended their set with The End from The Beatles Abbey Road album. It provided a chance for the drummer to have an AWESOME drum solo and it was the perfect song to end the set with. Plus, while the original version is great, it works well with a harder rock set of instruments. Then they did a couple encores which was really great – especially since lead singer Brain Mazzaferri’s vocal cords were giving out since we were the last stop on the tour. It really showed the band giving their all to their fans. I appreciate them even more for it.

Overall, it was a great concert. I recommend the Metro Gallery as a great venue because no matter if you’re at the stage or in the back you’re not very far from the stage at all. (However, because it is so small, you probably want to wear some ear protection – even if you plan to be in the back) I’ll probably end up checking out some more of MC Lars’ stuff and I’ll be keeping an eye on Rare Candy.