The Queers, The 66ers, Middle-Out, B-Plot and The Black List.
Joe Queer of The Queers. All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein.
When I bought the tickets, the show was The Blacklist, B-Plot, Middle-Out, and The Queers. Just a couple of days before the show, they added The 66ers, which I was not familiar with. After some research, I found out that they have an album coming out soon, and it's Joe Queer's other band. Even more importantly, their drummer is also in Billy Batts and the Made Men. BBATMM are one of the bands I discovered recently when going through every band on the 2025 Punk Rock Bowling roster, and they are one of my most highly anticipated bands this year.
When I got to The Sanctuary, it was early since I wanted to make sure to catch all 5 bands, which would start right after 7:00. I ran into a friend at the door talking to a few people and stopped to tell him about The 66ers being added and how they had the drummer of BBATMM. After a while, I noticed that something was off and stopped talking. He then introduced me to the band he was talking to, and of course it was the drummer of BBATTM. Cool guys, we chatted a bit about Punk Rock Bowling and the show that was about to happen.
The Blacklist was up first, and they got started right after the doors opened. There was a good-sized crowd for the first band; I wasn't the only one that got there early to check out the entire line-up. They did a well-deserved shout-out to Chris Van Assche from Pick It Up Media for everything that he does for the Detroit ska scene. It was a great start to the evening; no moshing yet, but the crowd loved them.
B-Plot was up next and really stole the show for me. They were the fastest band, the closest to hardcore, which is my preferred flavor of punk rock. Before the show, at the merch table, we talked about their 2023 CD "Televandalism," which they had for sale. I had already downloaded it from Bandcamp, and it's really good. Most of the songs were from that CD, and while they didn't play my favorite, "Plot B", they did play a good chunk of the rest (including "Televandalism" and "ID"). They also did a couple from their upcoming split. "We play that funky Church beat.... just faster, more aggressive, and without the religious overtones" sums them up pretty well.
Middle-Out is from Detroit, and I've seen them a couple of times now (including a great show earlier this year at Smalls with Off With Their Heads). They never disappoint, and it always goes by so fast that I lose track of what just happened. This set was 7 songs, primarily from their new "Self-Titled" record (which you can download from Bandcamp). If you haven't heard them before, check out their song "Content With Contention" and look for their upcoming shows at Smalls (with Nerf Herder and Diesel Boy on 5/24/2025 and again with Get Dead on 6/19/2024). Great band, and they are getting their due being on the bill with so many legendary bands.
The 66ers weren’t as fast and crazy as I was hoping, with the drummer from Billy Bats and The Made Men and Joe from The Queers. But they were good, along the lines of the set that The Queers were about to play. They had a keyboard player, which was unexpected but worked. In the end though, I was ready for The Queers.
The Queers played a lot of songs from "Punk Rock Confidential", "Munki Brain," and "Don't Back Down," opening with "Don't Back Down" (originally by The Beach Boys). This wasn't their usual punk rock set full of expletives and flipping off the audience. It was more Ramonescore this time, with lots of long songs and melodies. The crowd still insisted on moshing, and several members of The 66er's (including the keyboard player) joined the band. Several times the singer/guitarist for The 66ers even took over lead guitar so that Joe could focus on singing. Not my preferred set from them, but I enjoyed it and I'm already looking forward to their return to The Sanctuary on August 15, 2025, with The Jasons.
The Queers return to The Sanctuary in August with The Jasons.
