Freedom - Triple-B Records California Takeover

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of catching a date of another Triple-B Records California tour, this time hosted by The Hard Times Shows at 924 Gilman St in Berkeley, California. The last Triple-B Records California Tour that I remember going to was Freedom, Forced Order, Fury, Protester, and Scalped back in the spring of 2015. And to give you some additional context, it had been 3 years since I’d last seen Freedom, and about 8 months since I’d last seen FREE at Sound & Fury in 2017.

This Winter’s Triple-B Winter California tour included Freedom from Detriot, Unified Right from Florida, FREE from Boston, and Wasted Dream from the Bay Area. FREE, who had a flight scheduled to leave shortly after their set, performed a high-energy, short and straight to the 10-minute point set. I’ve got a lot of respect for individuals like those in FREE that bring this kind of passion and drive to their music while conveying positive messages using intellectual dialect. I commend these guys and have the utmost respect for the dedication and work ethic they display towards their art. The fact that an individual would play a ten minute set on Sunday night, catch a flight across the country 2 hours later, then go to work at 7am the next morning is straight up dedication – there is no other way to describe it.

Next up was Wasted Dream, a new California band including The Hard Times’ own Matt Saincome on the drums.These guys are flying low on the radar right now, considering they’re pretty damn new. But don’t be mistaken, their tracks were high-energy and felt very powerful. I’ll definitely be looking to hear more of their stuff, hopefully with an official release in the near future.

Following Wasted Dream, Unified Right set Gilman off. There was a lot of hype regarding Unified Right’s recent LP that dropped in December of last year. I think I finally understand why this band is so respected; I really appreciated this band’s riff versatility. Many of their tracks took unanticipated, yet well-executed rhythmical shifts and they made clean utilization of tempo changes. I really appreciated just how clear and impactful this band sounded together.

Lastly, Freedom took the stage. Freedom is a band that I’ve been a big fan of since I heard their release Pay The Price back in 2014. Since I last saw Freedom in May of 2015, they’ve released an LP entitled USA Hardcore (2015) and an EP entitled Never Had A Choice (2017). The thing that impressed me the most about watching Freedom’s set this time around was the sheer energy that they managed to demand and evoke with their music. Each track felt impactful and straight to the point. Riffs transitioned fluidly into breakdowns while maintaining and continuing to call for more and more energy. “Slam” still brought forth the same amount of power and aggression that I remember it having when I listened to it for the first time. All of the tracks they played off the new EP sounded very technically and rhythmically precise. It was really refreshing hearing them in a live setting. I personally really enjoyed watching drummer Jake Duhaime and guitarist Alec Faber; both of those are absolute beast musicians and performers. Freedom is an absolute monster of a band and I can’t wait to catch them again hopefully sometime soon!

(cough cough @soundandfuryfest please make it happen)