LIVE REVIEW // CIVIC at Elsewhere Zone One

All Photos: Hannah Roberts

Punk is kind of a weird genre. We all know its core credo, its general sonic output, but somehow, every piece of music that’s remotely heavy has been bequeathed the thorny crown of “punk”. On Spotify, searching “Punk” will lead you to a ragbag of playlists that are merely hyphenated punk: “Emo Forever”, “Pure Pop Punk”, and, I write through nausea, “The Essential Ska”. In my rabbit hole, I even found a playlist boasting tracks by absolute legends The Moldy Peaches and Neutral Milk Hotel dusty and disheveled under the confused rubble of a “folk-punk” playlist. 

I don’t see myself as being that much of a purest when it comes to punk (and, with the frankly concerning historical fringes of punk and their ideas of… purity… I wouldn’t ever want to be), but I’ll die on the hill that punk should be made with real, physical, instruments, that there should generally be overlying themes expressing frustrations with the social and political systems at hand, and that it should be fast ‘n’ loud. With bonus points assigned for band members who just look like normal dudes (said with gender neutrality), and not like mom bought them a shopping spree at Search & Destroy for their 15th birthday. 

This is a long winded way of saying that I had the pleasure of seeing Aussie punks, CIVIC, live at their first ever New York show in October, and they were everything I wanted them to be.

The show took place at Elsewhere, a giant warehouse space with multiple rooms. “Are you here for Yung Bae or CIVIC?” the woman dividing the line asked me. I stared blankly back at her, with my all-black outfit on, and clutched my bag, adorned with a CBGB pin. (Which isn’t as good of a signifier of my punk alliance as it may have been in 1977.) “CIVIC is to the right,” she assumed before I could register what she asked. I went to the right.

I missed Brooklyn’s very own PYREX, a band that’s far less domesticated than their namesake. And I didn’t have to see them to know that. If you close your eyes while listening to their biggest track “Touch”, you can almost feel the venue floor shaking and a rogue beer can whacking you in the head. I caught about half of the second band, LOOSEY’s set. With shaved heads and tattoos aplenty, they give off the vibe that they’re gonna blow your brains out with a level of noise pollution unseen previously by humankind. But really, they play pretty standard dad rock. Think, the Ramones meets Van Halen.

Then, it was finally time for CIVIC. The band took the stage with unbridled energy and ripped right into their new single “Hourglass”. Red light and sweet, sweet noise pollution flooded the room as the band sprinted through their set, leaving a cloud of swirled up dust in their absence. They only played for a tight half-hour, which was a bummer, but it was a packed 30 minutes that left an impression on the packed Zone One crowd. 

CIVIC evokes the classic 80s heavy punk sound – think Black Flag or Bad Brains. They play their instruments well, some could argue too well for punk’s notorious kinda-bad-at-music ethos. But the fury with which the band plays their instruments is enough to sell their authenticity. 

Hopefully, NYC’s solid reception of the band is enough to get them back stateside sooner rather than later. They’re an undeniably solid band, and I was bummed to see their set end at, like, the crack of nine o’clock. But, I’d like to hope this is only the beginning for CIVIC, and that there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to see them play a long enough set to really cause some ringing in the ears.