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Review by Eric KammI remember seeing Pennywise at the Warped Tour about ten years ago, and trying my hardest to mentally keep up with Byron McMackin’s drumming. Standing in the sun that day, the thought entered my mind that if I couldn’t keep up with the drummer (after ten years on the instrument), then it was a safe bet that the people around me were just as baffled. New School Punk drumming is just too fast and technical for most people to understand. But…where most of us couldn’t hear what Byron was doing, every person in that audience felt what he was doing. You could see it in the air--hundreds of kids flying everywhere in the pit, the crowd was yelling at the top of their lungs, and Southern California’s finest four piece were going off on stage. It’s easy to understand why the punk quartet is still packing the biggest venues around, just like they did a couple months ago when they sold out the Fillmore on February 9th, 2007. I’m happy to say that I was at the show.This particular night found a solid bill of supporting acts, including the infamous Circle Jerks, Ignite, and 2 Cents. As Pennywise hit the stage, the packed Fillmore audience started to move. I was stage left, and planted behind a half-stack, so I had a solid view of the entire band, except for Byron. Fortunately, I could see his hands, and that’s all I needed. The band played for almost an hour, and delivered a nice mix of older and newer material, featured cameos from Fat Mike (NOFX) and Zoli Teglas (Ignite and briefly The Misfits), and ended as always with “Bro Hymn.” A few of my personal highlights included “Same Old Story” and “Homeless.” There’s just something about the raw angst the band delivers “Same Old Story” with, that just gets me every time. From what I could discern from the side of the stage, [guitarist] Fletcher was saying that “Homeless” had something to do with one of his personal experiences in San Francisco. Whatever experience the song is specifically about, it sounded great.Byrons drumming was forceful, fluid, under-control, and most impressively, relaxed. There were a few lights behind and above the drummer, so I got a nice view of very consistent stick heights and motion trails, just like in those vintage black and white photos from the 1960’s. I can safely say that I can now mentally keep up with Byron’s drumming, and what struck me at this particular show, was Byron’s solid sense of song structure. I remember reading about [guitarist] Fletcher and the drummer’s song-writing process in his last appearance in DRUM! Magazine, and I recalled the statement that the two often argued their way through structuring songs. Conveying structure at lightning fast tempos is harder then you can imagine, and you can hear it on a song like "Perfect People," which they gratefully played that evening. What is funny to me is the fact that Byron plays the lightning fast snare roll in the introduction of the song cleaner now then he did on the recorded version--but I guess that what the lyrics of the song are about, right? As I left the show that evening, 3 thoughts went through my head: 1) F$@K!, that was great 2) I definitely need to go pick up The Fuse3) I’m looking forward to seeing where this band goes next. I guess I’ll get my answer in a few months when they co-headline the Warped Tour in support of their new record.Drums: Pork Pie1. 20" x 20" Bass Drum2. 13" x 6" Snare3. 12" x 9" Tom4. 14" x 10" Tom5. 16" x 14" Floor TomCymbals: ZildjianA. 14" A Quick Beat Hi-HatsB. 18" Z Custom Medium CrashC. 19" Z Custom Medium CrashD. 20" Z Custom Ride