The second annual Wrecking Ball ATL festival is being marketed as “one final blowout” for the current location of the Masquerade, one of Atlanta’s most essential live music venues. Continued gentrification in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood has pushed the venue out of its home in the old Excelsior Mill on North Avenue and into a new location in West Midtown.
While it’s reassuring to know the Masquerade will live on elsewhere, it will be hard to say goodbye to the incredibly unique two-story building that has produced countless music memories over the last 25 years. Here are five acts we feel will properly commemorate the club as they rock its variety of stages for the last time.
Heaven: Piebald (Saturday, 6:35 p.m.)
Piebald’s initial 15 years of existence, before its 2007 breakup, was one of the best runs of any emo band from the ’90s. Starting in the Boston hardcore scene, Piebald eventually shifted its sound and become one of the definitive emo bands of a generation. The group’s early albums, as well as its various single compilations, are considered classics of the genre. This reunion is one of many at this year’s Wrecking Ball, which is banking heavily on ’90s nostalgia. Expect Piebald to tear the house down upstairs on the Heaven stage, similar to Braid’s amazing performance last year.
Purgatory: Diet Cig (Saturday, 7:05 p.m.)
The New York duo of singer and guitarist Alex Luciano and drummer Noah Bowman is on the edge of breaking out into something big. The Masquerade’s smallest stage is often used to showcase smaller local bands or touring acts just getting their feet wet. It’s not uncommon to see bands move their show from Purgatory to Hell to accommodate ticket sales, a moment that feels like a rite of passage for touring groups. Still, nothing beats the sometimes uncomfortable intimacy and occasionally obstructed view of Purgatory, and it should be the perfect venue for Diet Cig’s funny, wonderfully personal brand of clumsy indie-pop.
Hell: Foxing (Sunday, 5:50 p.m.)
The St. Louis emo band is no stranger to the Hell stage, which has come to be one of the premier showcases for bands associated with what was once referred to as the “emo revival.” Emo never went away, but around 2013, bands like Foxing, Modern Baseball and The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die restored the genre to prominence. That’s not to say Foxing is strictly an emo act. Over the course of its two albums, Albatross and The Dealer, the group has incorporated elements of post-rock, ambient and electronica on top of its base emo sound. The band’s live show is more likely to remind you of Sigur Rós than Sunny Day Real Estate, adding an important layer that doesn’t always come across on the records.
The Great Outdoors: Dinosaur Jr. and Thursday (Sunday, 6:45 and 7:45 p.m.)
This year, Wrecking Ball will have two outdoor stages. While you should really make sure to say goodbye to the interior of the Masquerade’s current location, the outdoor lineup is absolutely stacked, and we would be remiss to not give you a few recommendations.
First we have Dinosaur Jr., the legendary Massachusetts rock band that somehow keeps reaching new heights. After an extended hiatus from 1997–2005, the group reunited and has since released a string of albums that are arguably as good as or better than anything it released prior. This set will be coming directly off the release of the band’s excellent new album, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not, and should pull heavily from that release.
Directly after Dinosaur Jr. is the freshly reunited Thursday. After a tumultuous breakup in 2011, the influential post-hardcore band was seemingly fractured beyond repair. However, after a lot of convincing and negotiating, Wrecking Ball seemed to mend whatever had broken between the band members, initiating a last-minute reunion. Only a few more shows have been announced, and Wrecking Ball will be your first chance to see Thursday in over half a decade.
Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.
