Battlemode parties with a South Shore bday bash at The Jungle on Saturday, 20 January 2024.

Pretty Late and Please Deal With Me fill out the Quincy contingent.

No Detour and The Sleds invite guest vocals on stage, because why not, a birthday comes but once a year.

The Jungle was a former police car garage?

The cozy space couldn’t have held many cruisers. Two vehicles could slide in comfortably; four if you maxxed out the square footage, bumper to bumper, side to side, with no room for an auto mechanic to monkey around.

Speaking of which, what’s the status of an auto mechanic who works full time on police cruisers at a garage owned by the police department? Are the mechanics cops?

You can join the army just to become a cook. They still put you through basic training, teach you how to fire a weapon, bunk you in the barracks with the rest of the trigger posse. Once you’re out of basic training, maybe you do nothing except plan & prepare meals for the next ten or twenty years of your military career. But you’re still a soldier.

Is that how it works for cop car mechanics? Do they carry a badge? Pack heat? Strongly encourage you to donate to the annual Policemen’s Ball fund?

At the very least cop car mechanics will aim to get those special law enforcement plates or stickers for their personal vehicles. You know, so they park in the handicap spot while running into the store for eggs, and not get a ticket.

All part of what it takes to protect & service a vehicle.

The Sleds

The four-piece promises to be your cure against soft rock. And who could doubt them? It’s The Sleds.

The opener started immediately with a change of pace, bringing the drummer upfront on guitar to play one his personal ballads. Reportedly, it was only the second time the drummer performed the song live, so the gig in June must have been the other time, right? Also, at The Jungle.

Whatever the seat assignments, the band members kicked out heavy rawk jamz. And, in what became a trope of the night, there was a birthday shout out to the vocalist from No Detour, who also sat in for a song.

Pretty Late

Another trope of the night. “This band’s from Quincy.” There was a regular Quincy contingent, including Pretty Late.

The five-piece balances big guitar distortion with the careening vocals of their lead singer to produce hard rocking ballads. Sometimes breathy, sometimes brassy. Shades of dropbear.

Hump Day News previously caught this band playing at a matinee show at Midway Cafe in 2022. Which was not too long after the release of their debut album Better Late Than Never, available to stream at the usual spots.

Please Deal With Me

Another band from Quincy! It’s Please Deal With Me.

The preponderance of South Shore representation makes you think that the entire bill was hatched in the imagination of some local Quincy music scenester.

Every musician in the house seemed to know each other, so maybe they all attended to Quincy High, hit homeruns for the Quincy Presidents ball club, smoked dope beneath the bleachers at Quincy Stadium, got root beer floats at the Quincy Soda Jerk, learned life lessons playing bingo with the residents at the Quincy Home for Retired Folks.

But you know, every party comes to an end, nothing is meant to last. At the end of their senior year, the posse came together, spit in their palms, and made handshake promises to reunite for heavy rawk shows at The Jungle at least twice a year.

Please Deal With Me made good on the promise, reeling out spritely, uptempo rock n roll burners for the Union Square locals.

No Detour

Where’s No Detour from? Can’t find the answer online. If you twist our arm, we’ll say Quincy.

The birthday boy of the night handled lead vocals and bass for the hard rocking three-piece.

After sitting in on vocals for another band’s set earlier in the evening, No Detour returned the favor with a guest on stage for a song or two. Some old school mini-moshing unfolded in the pit, including a guy whose #1 move was throwing haymakers into the void. The guitarist also ripped off his shirt halfway through the set because rock no roll.

Battlemode

Extra points right out of the gate to Battlemode for headlining a five-stack bill. You need smelling salts to stay alert for the closing spot on a bill that long.

To use a phrase we never use: a quintuple-stack bill.

If you came to spy the band as a newly-minted three-piece, you’ll have to wait until at least their show with Frank Hurricane and Double Star at The Rockwell in February.

The chiptuners cut their teeth as a two piece, in any event. The duo of Biff & Astro slid right back into their respective assignments without blinking an eye. Biff brings the melodic vocals while Astro serves up the rhymes.

A glitchy stew emerges from an ingredient list of violin, Gameboy, keys, and synth flute, for a danceable mix that oscillates between techno ballads and straight house pounders.

Was this a release show for their new single “Mega”? Did the track get debuted? 

Truth be told, five bands in (and at least as many beverages too), it’s hard to track setlists with precision in a loud club. The song is described as an instrumental, and there was plenty of techno jamming, so maybe it slipped in there…

A couple of classic tracks that definitely got airtime were “Moon” and the crowd pleaser “Midnight Blue,” which got the Battleheadz in the pit dancing.

Did we see the frontman for Your Friends In Hell bobbing along?

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