So right off the bat: We’re cheating a bit. If you’re reading this on Friday (October 1), well, this show is tonight: Sam Black Church have reunited to play Boston’s Paradise Rock Club, joined by an also reunited Stompbox (their first show in 28 years!) and rock and roll lifers Tree. If you’re reading this on Saturday (October 2), then this show is also tonight, as SBC pull double duty with the aforementioned and other special guests to unify the music scene in support for a friend who is battling an ongoing illness, Boston radio and touring veteran Julie Duffy.
It’s an intense double header, not just for the cult-like hardcore metal band Sam Black Church, who first emerged from the fertile late-’80s and early-’90s Boston scene and play their first live shows since in five years, but also for the ‘Dise, which continues to bring in homegrown bands to play its Comm. Ave. stage (Nervous Eaters played last night; Van Buren hosted last Friday; and Oopma headlines next week).
This weekend’s Sam Black Church shows are the first since the band reunited to celebrate Duncan Wilder Johnson’s 2016 documentary Leave Behind A Grove In The Earth: The Sam Black Church Story. Johnson is on the bill for Saturday’s fundraiser for Duffy, which will raise funds for her medical costs.
“[Sam Black Church] was a band that everyone would stop and stare because they couldn’t believe what was happening on stage,” Killswitch Engage’s Mike D’Antonio says in the doc. “Just total chaos, utter chaos.” Back in 2014, Johnson told Vanyaland just what led him down the path of telling Sam Black Church’s story: “The amazing music of Sam Black Church, how intensely they performed, and their compelling story from no one knowing who they were to growing to huge popularity in New England to making an impact after they stopped playing on what are now considered top-tier metal bands.”
For one weekend, at least, the impact is back.
SAM BLACK CHURCH :: Friday, October 1 and Saturday, October 2 at The Paradise Rock Club, 969 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston, MA :: Friday at 7 p.m., all-ages, tickets are $35 :: Saturday at 6 p.m., 18-plus, Tickets are $50 :: Click here for Crossroads Presents’ COVID policies
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