Live music review: Tear Dungeon tour kick off at Radio East with stage dives
I’ve seen a lot of things in my years of going to rock and roll shows. I have experienced a man in a rubber sex mask spit fake blood into a child’s face. Whenever Tear Dungeon plays, there is always a chance of something insane happening. Between roof climbs, the highest stage dives, a garage being ripped down to the studs (see: their show at the now-defunct Ghost Cat Lounge) the band has established a culture of chaos at their shows, that if you’re here, being an absolute psycho is A-OK. The band’s show at Radio East on Saturday, August, 9 was no exception.
Kicking off their first tour, Tear Dungeon is entering a new phase from being an Austin “it” band of the moment, to a band with a future within the larger punk rock discourse. The band is a love child of Rollins-era Black Flag mixed with some Dag Nasty, a little Negative Approach and with their roaring at eleven energies, they’d fit in great on both punk and hardcore bills. It wouldn’t surprise me if they pop off overseas as a lot of bands like that do before they find their groove stateside where hype controls a lot of perception around rising acts.
Tear Dungeon’s shows in Austin are steadily growing in popularity and after the band did its thing at Radio East, it’s easy to see why the package works: fun live show, songs to bang your head and a sense that the band is up to something special within its feral energy. The group, dressed in their signature all white with black sex masks are the stuff of nightmares. The shows they put on are a relic from back when punk was supposed to be a mix of danger and a little sprinkle of lust with the tip of a knife.
Austin’s punk scene has sucked for a long time and now as bands like Tear Dungeon and Die Spitz are making their names known, it’s the right direction as the music expands beyond hipster bands doing weird stuff trying their hardest to be a new take on a tired recipe of Talking Heads. Tear Dungeon’s music isn’t tight, it isn’t complicated, it’s pure fun – there’s no mystery in what they’re doing, but how they execute their madness is what’s compelling, the band plows through the music while anyone in the way has a chance to be strangled, spit on, or climbed over. What they do well is perform as a unit that’s making fun punk songs and not rely on the gimmick of the whole mask thing – that’s ultimately what’s hard to pull off and not be corny.
As the show at Radio East put the band’s future into a new gear, the crowd was right there with them, in the pocket, in on the (ball) gag. People laughed, smiled and moshed in the moment of the band performing like it was an exorcism, and yes, even with a few kids in the crowd. One moment, someone is blowing bubbles from a bubble gun and the next, a body is flying through the air, or being strangled with a mic chord.
If there’s one thing Austin fans do well, it’s being the ideal incubator. Tear Dungeon’s shows are only getting bigger as the lore of the band grows with each new photo of their histrionics on Instagram. As we’re becoming an increasingly digital culture, a band like Tear Dungeon executes well: the performances are tailor made for those, “you shoulda seen this” moments. I will not be surprised if people arriving in black masks to their shows becomes a thing. Please just don’t spit blood on me – unless I’m wearing all white, then I’ll be in on the fun, too.
Tear Dungeon open their tour at Club Dada on August 21 and wrap up their brief run in Asheville September 11. Check all their tour dates and grab tickets here.
All photos by Justin Clark
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