REVIEW: An Evening of Hardcore at Lark Hall? Yup, you heard that right.

Dec 13

12/9 @ Lark Hall, Albany

“Drug Church is up next and the excitement in the room is palpable. Last time I saw them was in March 2024 at No Fun and there were literally people crawling on the ceiling. Could someone climb up on that mezzanine and launch themselves off it?”

A couple months back, my phone lit up with a text from my friend and bandmate Joey D. He only ever texts me if it’s music related (male friendship is super simple, y’all) so either he had just written a sick riff or there was a show that we would soon be attending together. I opened up the message and saw the DIVE Presents flyer: Drug Church was coming to town on Tuesday, December 9th with support from Spiritkiller and No Division. But when I saw the venue, the internal dialogue started going a little crazy.

“Lark Hall? For real? The venue that’s been hosting a jam-band extravaganza every week for the better part of two years? I mean, I know they hosted Thursday back in August, but Drug Church is a whole different animal. This venue is far too nice for these stage-diving, mosh-pitting shenanigans. This shit is going to be fucking wild.”

As I’m writing this, it’s now the morning after and I was 100% correct. That shit was fucking wild. The following is a stream of consciousness retelling of the evening’s events.

I’m late to the show. I hate being late to shows. It’s a bad move as a member of the local music scene to miss the openers and it’s an even worse move when you’re writing about the show, but accountability is important and I’m taking responsibility right here and now. Sorry everybody.

As I walk in, Spiritkiller is ripping. I stand by the entrance and take it all in. A couple of brief observations:

The sound in here, as per usual, is immaculate. Every instrument is perfectly mixed. The vocals pierce through the mix and fill the space. This is the best sounding room in the area!
Maybe it has always been here, but there’s a 5x15-foot stage extension out in front of the monitors. There will be many bodies launched off of that thing once Drug Church gets started. Stagedives!
It is PACKED in here. Even if I wanted to get out of this entrance way to find my friends, navigating this mass of people seems like a bad time.

Spiritkiller’s last song of the set is an absolute beast. The breakdown here at the end has the bassist and drummer in perfect lockstep while the guitarist is dancing around the fretboard playing octaves. The singer’s screams bring it all home. Great closer. No pit as far as I can see from my vantage point, but the crowd is receptive and appreciative.

Drug Church is up next and the excitement in the room is palpable. Last time I saw them was in March 2024 at No Fun and there were literally people crawling on the ceiling. Could someone climb up on that mezzanine and launch themselves off it? Probably not ideal for insurance purposes, but would make for a great story.

We’re posted up immediately stage right and are absolutely in the “someone or something is going to land on my head” zone.

The Drug Church set is over. I know this is a stream of consciousness retelling of events and all, but for those 50 minutes I was so focused on catching human beings and holding them up that I got very little as far as a song-by-song analysis goes. So instead, you’re going to read three beautiful lists that I’ve constructed.

The first is “Rules for Attending a Drug Church Show” in the style of Patrick Kindlon:

No drops, do you understand? “Every person dropped, an angel loses its wings. Did you know that?”
Keep your head on a swivel, do you understand? This is related to number 1, but is also useful to avoid being concussed.
No pit, do you understand? Everyone needs to be tight to the stage. Kindlon yearns for stage dives. He needs them. They are his life blood.
“This song’s got some bop to it, do you understand?” If you hear this, you better start jumping up and down. “World Impact” is a great example.

The second is “Stage Divers: Power Ranked”. As you’ve gathered by now, stage diving is a very important piece of any Drug Church show, so let’s take a moment to appreciate the folks who launch themselves into crowds of people with reckless abandon:

The bro in the brown leather jacket who tripped running across the stage, but dusted himself off and still stage dove. Valiant effort.

My bandmates, all of whom are in their late thirties. Keep the dream alive, dudes. (If you’re wondering, I did not stage dive. I’m too fat and feel bad for people having to catch me.)

All of the folks who do the half roll mid-air so that they land on their backs. Pro-move.

The person in the maroon sweater and matching fingerless gloves. They just pranced across the stage without a care in the world and then just lackadaisically fell into the crowd. They were my favorite and it wasn’t particularly close.

The final list is “Nick Cogan’s Best Riffs Played Live”.

“Bliss Out” – When he starts ripping and Kindlon starts screaming “with so many reasons to hate me, why lie?”, everyone in the audience begins to levitate. True story. It happened last night.
“Fun’s Over” – The cheeky harmonics he layers into the chorus are magical.
“Grubby” – Screeching and squealing perfection. I’ve gotten so used to them opening with this song that I was actually kind of shocked when they kicked things off with “Fun’s Over.” Side note, I really like when album openers are set openers. There’s clearly a level of intentionality there when writing the song.
“Weed Pin” – Some might say this is too low on the list and to those people I say, “you’re probably right, but this is my list and ‘fuck you, for $12.50 an hour.’”