Sick Puppies Connect in Lancaster, PA

Aussie hard rock act Sick Puppies are currently on the road promoting their newest release Connect, a collection of their most melodic material to date and which is slowly climbing the charts, led in part by the lead single “There’s No Going Back.”

Pennsylvania fans were lucky enough to catch one of the band’s latest shows at a little club in Lancaster called The Chameleon Club. The club itself is broken into three levels and has an open concept that allows fans to view the show from the front and sides on all three levels.

Kicking the night off was local support act Carving Out Fiction, a band with a great hard rock sound that borders on post hardcore. While relatively new on the scene, they are already creating quite a stir, having already won Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Best New Band from the 717 Music Awards and having local radio playing their single “Trial of a Man,” the band is on the fast track to success.

Bringing the evening to the next musical level was hard rock favorites 10 Years, who recently broke away from their major label to form their own label- Palehorse Records- and are currently on the road in support of the sixth album Minus The Machine.

They hit the stage with both barrels blazing, blasting through “Russian Roulette,” “11:00 A.M.” and “Chasing The Rapture” with each song getting a better reaction than the last. Singer Jesse Hasek straddled the barrier, leaning as far out into the crowd as he could, working them like he owned them.  They wasted no time ripping through “Fix Me,” “The Autumn Effect” and Dancing With The Dead,” only stopping long enough for the lead singer to tell the crowd they weren’t drinking enough for a rock show.

As the set neared its end the crowd was singing louder than the actual band. They closed the set with “Shoot It Out” which got the biggest reaction of the night and saw the first near-pit of the evening- only because the place was so packed it was almost impossible to move, let alone mosh. The thick crowd worked to Hasek’s advantage as he exited the stage on a pool raft, surfing the crowd all the way to the back, where he was set down gently by the fans and stepped right into the merchandise area, where he spent the next hour signing things and posing for pictures.

Sick Puppies closed out the night and it was evident from the very beginning that frontman Shimon Moore would be the ring leader for the night’s festivities. They plowed through opening numbers “Die to Save You,” “Survive” and “Cancer” with authority and bassist Emma Anzi all over the place thrashing about like a wild animal- If you aren’t familiar with Anzai, shame on you, she is hands down the best bass player on the planet right now.

From there, the band entered into the “Tri-Polar” trifecta, consisting of “Odd One,” “Riptide” and “Maybe” and which garnered the biggest crowd response of the evening so far, but the night was far from over.

“War” and “Gunfight” were two of the heaviest songs in the set and it saw the crowd again trying to start a pit, but with nowhere to go- it was impossible.

“Nothing Really Matters” saw Moore instructing everyone to put their hands on the person in front of them and bounce to reach what he called the next level shit.

If you’ve seen this amazing band before, you know how good of a show they put on and they just keep getting better. If you haven’t it’s time for you to get a clue. It’s hard to believe that such a huge sound comes from a trio.

-Eric Hunker