Tuesday 20/02/07 The Take Action! Tour @ The Rialto Theater, Tucson Arizona

Punk rock gives back to the masses with the Take Action! Tour that benefits the Youth America Hotline (YAH!) They promote suicide prevention awareness, raise money and help to save lives.  From Oregon the progressive/post-hardcore band Kaddisfly warms up the growing crowd with clever, natural and thoughtful songs. Innovative sounds permeate their music and come from the oddest places such as plastic flowers. Lead singer Christopher Ruff has a clear epic quality to his voice whilst his performance is aggressive and active. They play the inspiring piece ‘Campfire’ which is filled with surging vocals and drifting poignant instrumental bridges. The band gets people dancing and elicits a rousing round of applause when done.

We rush back from an interview just in time to catch the end of the post-hardcore A Static Lullaby’s set. ‘The Shooting Star That Destroyed Us All’ stirs the rabble up with gnarly rip your face off screamo and contrasting clear boyish verse. People clap along as the melody smoothes out then cheer as it growls and bellows to a climax once again.

People begin shouting “Pouyan” as soon as Scary Kids Scaring Kids sets foot on the stage. Their post-hardcore/pop-punk has a high energy new wave edge to it. The first notes of ‘The City Sleeps In Flames’ incites the audience into bedlam. The moshing, surfing crowd thunders on whilst Tyson Stevens roars and the band head bangs in unison. ‘The Only Medicine’ is like an electric charge as excitement reaches a fevered pitch and the mob sings loudly along. Pouyan stands back then runs, leaps off the stage and does a perfect swan dive onto of the bellowing horde, disappears and is lost. We give him a score of 9.8 on the dive because although it was physically perfect there was a brief moment when we saw fear on his face!