CONCERT REVIEW; HEAD AUTOMATICA

Concert Review- Head Automatica f/The Gateway
3/5

A chilly Wednesday night brought out the ‘emo’ kids, the ‘punks,’ the ‘in crowd’ and just about every other image stereotype for Bellmore natives Head Automatica.

Local openers The Gateway played to an ambivalent crowd to open the show. Their brand of power-pop-punk is quite generic, and ultimately boring. The sound was reminiscent of the power-pop of The Lashes, the ‘easycore’ of New Found Glory, and the poppiest of the pop-punk vets Blink 182. For a half hour, they pranced, danced, and hopped around, much to the mocking delight of the few that happened to be paying attention.

A half hour later, Head Automatica sauntered out onto the stage. They began to play a song with a driving beat, and vocalist Daryl Polumbo ran out on stage, grabbed the mic, and started to sing.

Polumbo has a jarring stage presence: running around the stage, he rallied the “troops” (the rest of the band) and keeping the crowd entertained.

The set was largely uneven, split between songs off their new release Popaganda and their debut Decadence.

Most of the newer songs, the single “Graduation Day” notwithstanding, fell flat as the crowd had no familiarity with the music. Despite the crowd’s familiarity with the song, it doesn’t excuse the terrible nature of “Graduation Day” itself.

Songs off Decadence fared much better, however. “Brooklyn is Burning” created a dance club atmosphere and set closer (by popular request) “The Razor” made for a grand finale.