Vironment

After Midnight Project (AMP), is towards the harder end of the spectrum as far as my musical tastes go, considerably darker and more rock-y than say, Hellogoodbye, who I’m a big fan of. I first caught an AMP show at Warped 2009 and they left a minor impression. There are a lot of bands I’ve never heard of that play on the Warped Tour (which is one of the best reasons for going!) and sometimes I catch one of them and I think, “Holy cow these guys rock!” and then I run home and download whatever music of theirs is available on the interwebs. Other times I think, “Bleh this is horrible!” and I try to gouge the experience from my memory. After Midnight Project seems to have fallen through the cracks, neither blowing me away, nor causing me to swear a vendetta against them forever. They left just enough of an impression that I recognized their name and acknowledged it as a band I would be interested in checking out again this year.

I had a very faint recollection of the performance I had caught the year before. I remembered that their music was a little harder and I remembered that they were on one of the crappier stages and did not get a big turnout as a result. In my experience Warped can be a great stepping stone for bands to go from obscurity to fairly mainstream, so I was a little sad when I went to catch the AMP show only to discover that they were still on a crappy stage, playing to maybe 50-80 people. It was then that I decided I would use all of my extensive influence and powers to spread their name all over the interwebs and single-handedly turn them into superstars!

To that end I am going to write a little blurb about them and why I like them and think that they deserve a lot more recognition than they seem to be getting.

These guys are talented. There are A LOT of bands that rock Warped Tour, and to be perfectly honest the majority of them are fairly mediocre, just able to churn out a lot of simple super-poppy stuff that really clicks with all the 16-year-old girls that seem to drive the mainstream music industry. After Midnight Project actually pump out some serious rock complete with crazy guitar riffs, angry vocals (less the horrendous screaming that passes as “music” in some circles these days) and a pretty impressive stage presence. The lead singer was rocking this crazy, black jumpsuit with duct tape all over and he was rocking it despite the unholy heat and humidity… rockstar all the way. They had the crowd, as small as it may have been, on their feet and totally pumped throughout their whole set, which was an impressive feat given the heat and time of day. That’s definitely more than I can say for most of the other acts I saw that day. In fact, me and my friend were in agreement that the AMP set was one of the best sets we had seen all day. We probably saw between 10 and 15 shows that day and this was easily in the top 3. I even had the luxury of catching a little acoustic set they put on later in the day and they still rocked pretty hard with bongos and acoustic guitars! They may have only left a minor impression last year but this time they’ve made a much bigger mark. My friend even went so far as to throw down some cash money on their CD… CRAZY!

I’m not going to suggest you go and do anything that crazy, but I am going to say, at the very least, you should check them out. If you’re into anything like Three Days Grace or Breaking Benjamin then I’m betting you would dig After Midnight Project, and even if you aren’t into that kind of stuff you should STILL check them out, because come on, aren’t you curious? Just go onto their MySpace page and listen to a couple of their tracks. What do you have to lose!?!? I’d say check out the track Scream For You as it is one of their best and definitely had the crowd going (even during the acoustic set) so check it out!