Measles Mumps Rubella – Summer 2002 Demonstration Model

Double Dagger. Jesuseater. Economist. Black Eyes. Crispus Attucks. Q And Not U. Liars Academy. Pageninetynine. Oxes. Municipal Waste. Measles Mumps Rubella. Those were the sounds of my summer twenty years ago. I hesitate to call it a golden age for the Baltimore/DC/NoVA metro area, but it definitely was the first time where I felt I could go to a life-changing show any given night. And I pretty much did.

It was a High On Fire show where I remember seeing MMR for the first time. I remember being really bummed out that there weren't any Baltimore bands in support, but psyched that Black Eyes was going to play. They had already played a few gigs up north, and had just owned the show every time. I knew very little about Measles Mumps Rubella, except that one of the guys was in Panopoly Academy, and another one of the guys had done some stuff with His Name Is Alive. Pretty "meh" credentials, as far as I was concerned at the time.

But they lit it up when they opened up the show. Brett sang and played percussion, alive like Fela Kuti fronting Gang Of Four. In about 30 minutes, they blasted through a half dozen sweaty songs, setting the stage for almost certain disappointment with the rest of the show. It's one of those nights I can only remember in little blasts of sound and light, a feeling more than a concrete memory. I'd see MMR play a handful more times, but they never had the same sort of impact of punks playing disco than they did that night in 2002.

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