Between sets at punk/rock band Militarie Gun’s headline show at 924 Gilman on July 26, I noticed that there was a kid standing behind me. I bent over the edge of the stage, testing out camera angles for the upcoming set by Gouge Away, one of the openers; the kid craned their neck around me. They were half my height and I wondered if they would be able to see. “Do you wanna switch spots with me?” I asked. “Nah,” they said. “I’m good.” An hour later, as Militarie Gun revved up one of their hard-charging, melodic ragers, the kid dove off the stage and spent almost the whole set crowd-surfing. They were good.
The audience that packed Gilman was noticeably varied: The crowd-surfing kid couldn’t have been more than 12, while elsewhere, parents in faded band shirts shepherded teens decked in tank tops and camo cargo pants. I heard some older audience members reminisce about the days when tickets were $5 across the board, while younger kids discussed the resurging mainstream popularity of shoegaze. Before an opening set by the local hardcore band Caveman, one teen asked another, “Do you pinky promise not to sock me in my shit?” A few songs into Caveman’s set, that same teen hopped onstage and roared into the mic while others on the floor opened up the pit.
The night’s acts ran the gamut of guitar music. Caveman and Gouge Away represented the harder end of the spectrum, offering fast-paced sets of throat-shredding hardcore, while between them, Heart To Gold’s set leaned more towards lo-fi indie rock. The movement between these disparate styles nicely dovetailed with Militarie Gun’s ethos; the Seattle-based band, touring behind their 2023 album Life Under The Gun, spikes their thrashy punk songs with sun-glazed pop hooks. Or it could be said that they scuzz up the immediate melodic pleasures of songs like “Do It Faster” and “Very High” with heavier textures, depending on your perspective. They match this melodic approach with an introspective lyrical style; their songs aren’t about pushing anger and despair outwards, but about how those feelings can corrode the self when they’re internalized.
The two sides of the band’s personality were on full display. The rip-roaring opening run swung from the bright pop-punk of “Seizure Of Assets” to the heavy, chugging riffs of “Think Less”; the infernally catchy “Pressure Cooker” was preceded by “Ain’t No Flowers,” one of their moshiest songs. The energy was high and giddy. The band’s performance of “My Friends Are Having A Hard Time” deemphasized the melancholy vulnerability of the recorded version, while its surfy riffs and bouncy rhythms gave the crowd ample opportunity to mosh. When vocalist and songwriter Ian Shelton introduced their recent single “Thought You Were Waving,” he politely asked the crowd to slow down and listen to the words; the audience obliged, but was obviously gratified when the energy cranked up again.
The band handled these shifts gracefully; with that brief moment of calm out of the way, Shelton went back to exhorting the crowd to move up and jump to the music. The songs felt dirtier and harder live than they do on record, the riffs chunkier, the drums heavier. This had the effect of lightening the emotional content of their songs, which was borne out in how Shelton peppered jokes into the between-song patter; he introduced “Never Fucked Up Once” by talking about how messing up is a natural part of life, but for his part, he’s… well, title of song. This lightheartedness didn’t feel at odds with their songs, but rather allowed them to come across as more cathartic than they do on record. When they closed the set by playing “Do It Faster” twice in a row, it was both a funny joke about the impatience the song narrates and an opportunity to live in its adrenaline-rush momentum just a little longer before returning to regular life.
Between the dichotomy that the band demonstrated, the variety of perspectives offered by the opening acts, and the audience’s even split between older and younger listeners, it struck me that Militarie Gun is a very easy band to like. For younger fans just getting into punk, they offer melody and energy; for older listeners, their hard-won wisdom and obvious reverence for the scene could resonate more. They’re a band that sits at the intersection of several styles and subgenres, exemplifying a more porous and open-minded approach to punk music—one that isn’t bound to strict rules of conduct or preconceptions of genre. I imagine this approach could turn off more prescriptive listeners, but given the makeup of the crowd at Gilman, it seems like it also opens them up to many, many more.
The song that got the biggest response of the night wasn’t a Militarie Gun original. Midway through the performance, Shelton posed a question to the crowd: the band could play one of two songs, but the audience had to pick. Should they play song one, or song two? Then they launched into a rowdy cover of Blur’s 1997 hit “Song 2,” and the room went ballistic. It was funny, given that the original song has a certain parodic sneer, that a band as unfailingly earnest as Militarie Gun would take it on. But live, no one argued with its hooks.
