Valencia
Metro – Chicago, IL
10/9/2008

Shane Henderson (vox)

Since moving to Chicago in late August, I have seen around 12 shows and not one of them has been a punk show. That was a true statement until last Thursday when the Involuntary Movement Tour stopped by the Metro with Bayside, The Matches, Valencia, and The Status .

New pop punk hopefuls, The Status, started the night with a quick 30-minute set. The single, “Perfect Day,” was the song that stuck in my head; it will be interesting to see where these gents end up over the next few years.

After The Status played a handful of songs, Valencia took the stage around 6:45pm. The pop-punk group out of Philadelphia recently released their sophomore record, We All Need A Reason To Believe, after a switch from I Surrender Records to Columbia Records. The set relied heavily songs from the new album for obvious reasons but my favorite of the night was “The Space Between,” off the first record. That could be because I still favor the old album, This Could Be A Possibility, over the new. Lead singer Shane Henderson has a great stage presence, it’s quite obvious from the photo that he puts a lot into his singing and even goes through a vocal warmup before every show. At the end of the night, I got a chance to talk with Shane about the new record and the current Involuntary Movement tour with Bayside . I’ll post that link shortly.

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