Saturday night was a blend of ska and fastpaced, high-energy punk rock as Streetlight Manifesto made a stop at The Rock. Streetlight Manifesto is a seven-member band from New Jersey. Their music is a blend emo lyrics with catchy rhythms and sounds a little bit like Sublime, but with more rock and more brass.

The opening band for Streetlight’s tour was The Shkanks, another ska band. They had some good songs, but they still have that ‘new band’ sound. However, I believe we will be hearing from them in the future. The Shkanks did their own mini-tribute to Haddaway’s “”What Is Love””
which sounded pretty good.

Next up was the Michigan-based quartet The Swellers, providing the fast-paced punk rock for the night. The only negative thing I can say is that some of their songs sounded the same after awhile, but they did have some very good ones, like “”Bottles”” and “”This Is My Everest.”” At one point, The Swellers asked everyone to take out their cell phones or lighters and one spectator had the audacity to hold up the middle finger. Well, let’s just say there was a “”your mom”” joke made by Swellers frontman Nick Diener, and that was the end of that.

Following The Swellers was Boston’s own quintet, A Wilhelm Scream. Like their name, A Wilhelm Scream did in fact provide the night with a little bit of scream-o. Two members of the band had a very interesting pre-show ritual: They rubbed each other’s hands and to end it, they did a double fist bump. Well, whatever that was, it worked because A Wilhelm Scream
went on stage and got the crowd moshing and
crowd-surfi ng.

The energy from the opening bands had
been gathered for the main act: Streetlight
Manifesto. Even before they took the stage
the crowd was chanting, “”Streetlight, Streetlight!”” When the band took the stage, the crowd erupted. Streetlight played many of its popular songs, such as “”We Will Fall Together”” and “”Everything Went Numb””. However, lead singer Tomas Kalnoky couldn’t quite get straight which song was the last song for the night. Still, the crowd had the same reaction
all three times: “”Nooo!”” Streetlight did perform an encore before they left.

Despite a couple people passing out and
one idiotic fan who thought it would be fun
to take over Kalnoky’s mic, the show was a
great success.