On Saturday night, the 19 Wheels took the stage at a packed Magic Bag. The band showed up sporting new haircuts, new guitars and a batch of new songs. Having been absent from a Detroit area stage for well over a year, the 19 Wheels seemed very happy to be back playing in town.

The band kicked off their hour-long set with "Rabies", a song from their 2000 release Sugareen. The group also played cuts off of their forthcoming album Jawbreaker. New songs such as "Reactor", "Erasable", "Juliet" and "Really Stupid Girl" had more of a hard edge than previous work. Although these songs have yet to be released, a surprising number of people sang along with the lyrics. Lead singer Chris Johnston fought his way through a bad cold and had to hold back in some spots in order to make it through the show. In some spots the band was a little rusty, but they sounded good overall. They closed the set with "Colorado", the only song played off the band’s debut record 6 Ways from Sunday.

The night was kicked off by the Answer Machines and The Grande Nationals, who proudly displayed the home town of each band member, in the form of a T-shirt.  --Matt Caruana

      

© 2003 motorcityocks.com :: all rights reserved