• See more photos from the UOA/Regents/The Gift show here.

I wrote a little thing a couple of weeks ago about this show. Read that after the jump.

This summer, UOA – a seminal Baltimore band comprised of members of many other seminal bands such as Born Against – played a reunion show as part of Whartscape, Wham City’s music festival. This was a band I had literally wanted to see for 12, 13 years but never had the chance to. I managed to sneak my way into to RSVP-only room where their performance was and they blew me away. Baltimore promoter Unregistered Nurse was blown away too, and managed to convince the band to play again, this time, as a stand-alone show, and got together a pretty great line-up of complimentary bands: Regents, who are members of Sleepytime Trio, Frodus, and Sick Weapons. The Gift, a noisy/dark DC band, and Oak, a scathing Baltimore doom metal band.

The show was great, and went off with nary a hitch, even with the snow/freezing rain looming in the background. The opening bands were all excellent, the standout for me being Regents, whose sound really evokes late 90s/early 00s emotional hardcore… UOA were tight, they played like they never stopped being a band, whipping through a longer set than their show earlier in the year. The crowd yelled for an encore, but I think they decided that would be too flashy, sending a friend back out on stage to inform everyone that the show was over and to drive safe.

From interviews with the UOA, it seems as though they will be playing a few more shows, including a set at this summers’ Chaos In Tejas festival, so seek them out. The Gift just released a record on DC’s Amor y Lucha Records, and Regents recorded songs for their first ep last week.