The first thing I noticed walking into the venue, 7th Circle Music Collective, was the graffiti adorning every square inch of the house and garage that make up the venue.

It ranged from stickers and markers to whole murals done in spray paint. The graffiti gave the scene a sense of community, like each and every band who’s performed there and every person who’s moshed in the pits has left their mark somehow. This atmosphere only served to excite me further for the show.

The show was listed as having four acts; Almutaha, Wake the Bat, Screwtape, and the headlining act, Victim Culture, though Alumtaha never actually got on stage. The concert itself was fairly standard, as punk shows go, though with a fairly small crowd, it being a Sunday night. Loud, aggressive music played over a pulsating pit of punk heads crashing into each other at high speeds. There was a layer of sweat and spilled beverages coating the floor of the pit, which made the act of moshing a fun yet dangerous pursuit.

Even though it was the Victim Culture’s tour kickoff, at the end of the show they announced they wouldn’t be touring or releasing new music through 2018 until 2019, which at least to this reporter, seems like an odd way to start a tour. On top of that, Victim Culture’s set was by far the weakest, playing a fairly short and relatively uninteresting set.

Screwtape, a popular local band, had the strongest set and did a great job interacting with the crowd. For their act, they put their drumset right in the middle of the floor instead of onstage, which helped to make the somewhat sparse crowd a little denser. The drummer was occasionally interrupted by an over-indulgent fan stumbling through part of his kit, but was skilled enough to recover whenever this occured. It certainly made the show more interesting being so close to part of the band. Wake the Bats also had a very strong performance, but I still don’t think it came close to Screwtape. All in all, it was a very enjoyable show for punkheads and other fans of heavier music, but not recommended for Pitbull or T-Swift fans.