Ignite – at Detroit Bar – Costa Mesa, CA

Ignite started out as an old guard Orange County Hardcore band. With former members of Unity and No For An Answer it would be hard to find a band with deeper roots in the Orange County Straight Edge scene. Over the years the band has had a lot of lineup changes and some changes in musical direction, so it was a bit surprising to hear that they would be playing a set with a reunited early lineup of the band at the Detroit Bar. The band played a set of material from their two most recent albums with their current lineup, doing songs like "Bleeding," "A Place Called Home," "Who Sold Out Now?," "Let It Burn," "Fear Is Our Tradition," and a cover of U2's "Bloody Sunday.


" Vocalist Zoli Teglas, who is a long time environmentalist and animal rights activist wore a shirt advertising the movie "The Cove," which documents the illegal killing of dolphins in Japan. He commented at one point during the set that he had taken part in protests against The Hump- a restaurant in Santa Monica that had served whale meat and other "exotic" sea food and noted that restaurant had closed in light of public outrage, citing this as proof that protesting can still be an affective mean for social change. (see the story on The Hump HERE)

Ignite's original drummer and guitarist, Casey Jones (NFAA) and Joe D. Foster (Unity) joined the band on stage and did a short set of early material, starting off with "Straight Ahead." This set was really great to see but it was all too short. Seeing the band play songs like "In My Time," "In Defense," "Embrace" was great. "Ash Return" was especially cool to see since that song was an anthem for Ignite when they started out, a sort of call back to arms to the old guard of Orange County Hardcore.

It would have been great to see them play a full set of early material, but they understandably concentrated on more new material instead. Maybe someday we will get to see a retrospective type set. It seems that in just a couple years they will be celebrating their twentieth anniversary as a band. Perhaps even Joe Nelson could make an appearance.

-Ditch-
Big Wheel Asst. Editor

 

 
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