The Cancer Bats totally stole the show last night at Chop Suey.

The guitarist looked like Tad’s metal-obsessed little brother. He thrashed his long hair around like and animal, he played every single spindly metal guitar noise perfectly, he was so fun to watch. The singer had a mullet/faux hawk, and he called songs “bangers.” “This next banger goes out to Gallows” and “We have two more bangers for ya,” he’d say.

They were loud—almost too loud—and they sounded like a hard rock/hardcore/metal science project with booming, anthemic choruses but they played like a party band. As they danced under blue and green lights, I pictured the stage of Chop Suey looking like their den of wicked experiments, with glass bottles of bubbling liquids and weird things happening to little animals in glass boxes… I wished they were wearing lab coats.

No, I was no on drugs.

Then This is Hell played and I loved them a lot less; I didn’t love them at all. Their 30-minute set was the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a long time and I can’t completely explain why, but let me try anyway. The band was comprised of one guy from every stereotypical music scene—the singer was a hipster, he looked like the Long Island version of Ben Lashes with his black hoodie under a jean jacket. One guitarist was a camouflage-shorts wearing hardcore kid with a blue bandanna wrappped around his buzzed head. He tried to make jokes while the other guitarist changed a string and he failed. I named the bassist Johnny Bluejeans because he was wearing tight, dark blue girl jeans and a tight sleeveless black shirt to show off his “pythons.” I bet he called his biceps pythons. The other guitarist looked like a regular dude in jeans and a t-shirt, and I don’t remember the drummer.

They were typical chugga chugga GROOOOOWWWWLLL hardcore, and they weren’t bad at it, but since that sound has been done since 1980, I’m so fucking bored of hearing it over and over again by new bands. It didn’t feel like a real show for their entire set. The kids in the crowd were weird—I don’t know where they came from, they weren’t there for Cancer Bats’ set. Even the singer kept saying how he didn’t remember Seattle being so weird.

These kids were dressed too well. They would yell weird, inaudible shit at the band, though they were loving it, and while they tried to do the hardcore dances you’ve seen on YouTube videos, they really didn’t know what they were doing. They mostly ran in loose circles and slam danced and fell down. A lot.

The whole scene felt like a set-up. It felt like this band and these kids were all cast to be the background concert for a WB show. Even weirder, the set started with a proposal. I think it was a proposal, anyway. Some dude hopped on stage, grabbed the mic and said something about someone marrying him.

Crickets.

He said it again “Garblegarblegarble marry me?”

Crickets.

He said it again “Garblegarblegarble marry me?”

Finally he called out his girlfriend’s name one last time, without mumbling it. It took her about three minutes to make it to the front Chop Suey’s stage from the bar, and she refused to get on stage when he asked. Then she kissed him, they whispered stuff to each other, and kissed some more and then the band wanted to start playing.

But no one looked happy, they just looked confused. I’m still not sure if she said yes or no.

So Gallows. Gallows were great. They were tight and even louder than the Cancer Bats and the crowd went apeshit for them. I had heard stories about the singer jumping off balconies, thrashing through the crowd, basically being a nutcase. But he did none of that and by the end of the second or third song he stopped the set for a minute to apologize. In his thick British accent, and using the word “fuck” a lot, he explained that while playing a show in LA he jumped off the rafter and landed on a “fucking fat dude.” He “broke his back proper” and that’s why he was “static” on stage and leaning on the mic stand.

The crowd made up for any craziness he was too injured to deliver. Dudes piled on dudes, people tried to crowd surf, there was a stage-diver or two, and everyone was running in circles bouncing off each other. There was a lot of “tough as shit” attitude. I’m surprised there were no compound fractures, the way bodies were being slammed against Chop Suey’s concrete floor.

But why I was really there was to find out if Gallows were assholes. They were banned from playing House of Blues in Disneyland last week because of their lyrics about dick-sucking and using a girl’s face as a cum rag. I can’t tell if the song “Orchestra of Wolves,” is against dude’s like that, if the singer is a dude like that, or if it’s just a song for song’s sake, but when the band blasted into it, capping off the night, everyone in the crowed rushed the stage and started signing along—sweaty boys screaming “I want you sucking my dick.”

I think the song is tongue in cheek, as far as the band’s concerned. But the way the crowd was singing it last night, I’m pretty sure at least 80% of those dudes think it’s a fucking great song about gettin’ some action despite the girl’s feelings.

So… Gallows? Not assholes. Some of their fans? Probably assholes.