Images: Set Your Goals, Last Call, The Letter You, Rivalries March 12, 2012 at the Hard Rock Cafe on the Strip

It’s only been a few months since Set Your Goals played the Hard Rock Café on the Strip with New Found Glory, Wonder Years, Man Overboard and This Time Next Year on the Pop Punk’s Not Dead tour. But they must have missed us, because before launching into a new tour, the hardcore-influenced pop punkers headlined a show supported by some of Vegas’ best: Last Call, The Letter You, and Rivalries.

The crowd for this show wasn’t as large as I would have liked to see, but the fact that it was a Sunday night coupled with Set Your Goals having just played the same venue a few months prior made the small turnout understandable. The band went heavy on songs from debut and fan favorite Mutiny, with Bible-critical anthem “Old Book Misread” and the title track closer (complete with three-part intro) seeing the biggest responses with kids crowd surfing closer to sing along with vocalists Jordan Brown and Matt Wilson.

As a thank you for the many times that local show promoter Patrick “Pulsar” Trout has booked shows for the band over the years, SYG let him make a request. Pulsar went with the crowd’s cries for the band’s cover of Jawbreaker’s “Do You Still Hate Me?” from their Reset EP.

For Last Call, this show was their last before heading out to California to record their debut full length. As such, the melodic punks played three songs that will be appearing on the as-yet-untitled release: “Roark,” “Tiger Mouth,” and “Live Together Die Alone,” a few in the audience already singing along to the latter thanks to its inclusion in their last few shows and our live video. Last Call has built a loyal following here and those fans showed up in full force to scream along to every word from the band’s Stay on the Outside and 12:57 EPs.

Being accustomed to seeing them play lower profile shows, it was pretty cool to see Rivalries and The Letter You on the big Hard Rock Café stage. As always, they killed it and it was nice seeing so many friends and family come out to support these young bands.

-Emily Matview | https://www.flickr.com/photos/holdfastnow/