Acoustic Basement @ The Barbary: Brian Marquis, Koji, A Loss For Words, Geoff Rickly and Vinnie Caruana.

Text and images by Mikki Pratel.

The Barbary hosted the Acoustic Basement Tour, sponsored by the Warped Tour, last Thursday. Punk rock artists such as Brian Marquis, Koji, A Loss For Words, Geoff Rickly and Vinnie Caruana stood on stage with only their guitars and made the crowd move.

Vinnie Caruana

Brian Marquis, the man who organized the whole show, was the first to take the stage. While there weren’t a lot of people in the beginning, he was able to make the small crowd of hipsters and punks move and bob their heads.

The crowd really danced around to Koji (above), A Loss For Words and Geoff Rickly, who stood on the speakers and beckoned for the crowd to approach the stage.

“Come here!” he said. “Come Closer!”

He covered “Climax” by Usher, which really got the crowd moving. After that they began to push forward and really enjoy the show. Then he made a girl cry with his song, “Going to Hell.”

Vinnie Caruana, the headliner, was awesome. After being in bands such as I Am the Avalanche and The Movielife, he knew how to connect with the crowd. He cracked jokes. It was obvious that he really but wanted people to sing have a good time.

Carauana asked the crowd what song they wanted to hear and several screamed, “Walking on glass,” a song from The Movielife.

“Brooklyn Dodgers,” the last song he played from his band I Am the Avalanche really got the crowd jumping and singing and just so excited.

Acoustic night was a small, intimate but high-energy show where great artists were able to perform for people that really appreciated their music.

Geoff Rickly