REVIEW: The Underachievers, Warm Brew, and Injury Reserve at The Rave
AK and Issa Gold make up The Underachievers, who performed in Milwaukee on Friday, October 6th, featuring West Coast opening acts Warm Brew and Injury Reserve. The crowd was full of rainbow of fabrics, patterns, and people from all walks of life uniting in song for their favorite artists and for the Milwaukee appearance of Warm Brew and Injury Preserve. The show wasn’t sold out, but the crowd moved around in unison as the show went on and it was close to packed.
Openers Warm Brew really surprised me with how they carried themselves on stage. Their stage presence had me convinced they could each be the frontman to their own band, each possessing a unique stage personality that showed through the photos I captured. I first heard of them in 2016 through their project, The Mission, and have been a fan since. Having a chance to be in the pit, I was literally the closest to the action and had a hard time choosing who to photograph, as they were each giving their all to a crowd of new and old fans. It took three minutes into the first song for Ray Wright to get into the crowd’s face by hopping on top of the photographers barricade to embrace the crowd, spitting word after word into the mic.
Injury Reserve, on the other hand, started off the show in the photographers pit right away, with Ritchie with a T jumping into the crowd immediately as Stepa J. Grogs looked on. He was even quicker than Ray Wright to get himself physically involved with his fans. He was playing with the camera and had me following his every move as he stared into the lens while I captured him standing on the barricades. Suddenly he turns away and we never lock eyes again. It is like he gave me the shots I wanted right away so that he could perform and give the fans the show they came for, which involved shooting under a strobe light for ⅓ of the three songs a photographer is permitted to shoot. At times I thought I was seeing a post-hardcore group performing, but nope- it was still Injury Reserve.
The Underachievers capped off the show by performing songs off their Renaissance album like “Al Capone” and “Play That Way”. When they played “Gold Soul Theory”, 2013 me grinned with excitement along with the crowd as we all anticipated a few classics to dominate the stage. They finished up the night with a powerful performance of “Packs” and gave their thanks to their Milwaukee fans.
