Have Heart triumphantly returned to NY, brought current hardcore heroes Speed & more (pics, review)

The best hardcore bands so often leave us too soon, but they also leave behind an impact that grows and grows long after they’re gone. Have Heart, who formed in 2002 and broke up in 2009 after wrapping up the tour behind their second and final album Songs to Scream at the Sun, are one of those bands. They amassed a diehard fanbase during their initial run for their forward-thinking take on aggressive yet tuneful hardcore, and even more so for the deeply emotional, positive messages that vocalist Pat Flynn weaved into his lyrics and stage banter. The Massachusetts straightedge band funneled the positive outlook of Youth of Today, the tear-jerking devastation of Rites of Spring, and the musical exploration of fellow aughts bands like Modern Life Is War and The Hope Conspiracy into one unique force that stood out from both forebears and contemporaries. And when they called it quits, their fanbase and their influence only became bigger and stronger. To paraphrase one of their own most-loved songs, they set a raging fire in the heart of so many kids. Their words and the message they sent burn inside our heads… even if they chose a different path to tread.

Have Heart members went on to form a variety of different bands after they broke up, including but not limited to Free, Clear, Sweet Jesus, and Fiddlehead–the last of whom have went on to have an unexpected level of longevity, all while Pat Flynn remains busy as a high school history teacher in Lexington, Mass–and the hardcore scene continued to evolve in ways that Have Heart helped set the tone for. Whether it was the popularity of bands like Touché Amoré, Defeater, and Title Fight in the 2010s, or the post-Turnstile boom of the 2020s, you could feel the way Have Heart either directly or indirectly left their mark on hardcore’s future. And when Have Heart reunited in 2019 to headline an outdoor show at The Palladium in Worcester, they drew nearly 10,000 people to what some at the time called the biggest hardcore show ever.

Five years and a pandemic later, hardcore has reached an unusual peak in popularity, and Have Heart returned once more to play just five shows. Having recently played Detroit’s Tied Down fest, the UK’s Outbreak Fest, and LA’s Sound & Fury fest, they played their first of two non-festival shows at Brooklyn Monarch on Friday night (7/19), and they wrap up with a hometown show at Boston’s Roadrunner (Saturday, 7/20). The shows of course quickly sold out, and after watching videos of Have Heart’s predictably-wild sets at all three festivals, I experienced it firsthand at the packed, sweaty Brooklyn Monarch.

Have Heart have already said that they’ll be done once again after the Roadrunner show, and every song they played at Monarch was at least 16 years old, but still, there was a sense of urgency to their set that didn’t feel anything like a nostalgia-inducing reunion. As Pat said on stage, this was a band that has always felt like a better world was possible, but a band that existed to ask questions, not provide answers. And in 2024, those questions hit even harder than they did 16-20 years ago. You could see Pat screaming his heart out the same way he does with the new music he writes with Fiddlehead. These words clearly still mean so much to him, and they clearly still mean so much to Have Heart’s fans as well. From the moment he grabbed the mic on Friday night, the crowd erupted into yelling every syllable right along with him, and clobbering him in the process. (He pretty quickly requested “water for the animals up front,” eliciting laughter from the loving crowd, and added that it’s not lost on the band that it’s a sign of “deep appreciation in this weird culture of ours,” and that they’re so grateful to be receiving that kind of response 15 years after calling it quits.)

Have Heart are a band that make you really think about yourself and the world and the people around you, but they’re also a band who are really fucking fun. The energy was endless from both the band and the crowd, from the first song up through the set-closing “Watch Me Rise” on-stage pile-on, and Pat’s emotive performances were matched by the absolutely gut-punching precision of his bandmates. Pat made a joking jab on stage at drummer Shawn Costa’s (also of Fiddlehead) skillset, but anyone feeling the attack of Have Heart’s rhythm section (with Wound Man’s Trevor Vaughan on bass) knew he wasn’t serious. And guitarists Ryan Hudon and Kei Yasui had the crisp sound and effortless aura that only comes from being a lifer. This wasn’t a band reliving their glory days; this was a band at the peak of their powers.

Pat recently posted that Have Heart are “not ‘back’ as a band” and said “it’s best we stay away after this run of shows to keep space and focus on the bands of today making new art,” and as much as the Have Heart set was the main event at Monarch on Friday night, it was just as crucial that the show had five opening bands who all got going in the past few years and who are all making great music and shaping the hardcore scene right now. The show opened with fellow Northeast straightedge band Anklebiter, who already got a good sized pit going during their 6 PM set, and the energy in the room just kept rising from there. Have Heart’s Boston neighbors Move put on an activism-fueled set that included multiple calls for a free Palestine with both their on-stage visuals and banter, Western Mass/Connecticut’s Restraining Order tore it up with their punky hardcore, more straightedge jams came from Charlotte ass-beaters Magnitude, and there was some NYHC representation from Regulate vocalist Sebastian Paba, who joined Have Heart to sing part of “Something More Than Ink” before flipping into the crowd.

The band that I think left the biggest impression, though, was Speed, who came right back to the US all the way from Sydney, Australia to open these shows (and play a couple other ones) after just touring with Knocked Loose here in June. Pat said on stage during Have Heart’s set that the inspiration to do the reunion was partially predicated on having Speed open, and the love was mutual. Speed vocalist Jem Siow talked about how big a deal it was when his first band when he was 14 got to open for Have Heart on their last Australian tour, and how tonight is the most full-circle moment for him. And he said now that Speed are taking off, people have been asking him who his dream band to open for would be, and he doesn’t know what to say because “we already opened for TUI and tonight we’re opening for Have Heart and those are my two favorite bands of all time!” Despite Speed’s tough-guy image, Jem was all smiles all night and clearly so excited to be there, and his energy was infectious. I don’t think you could be in that room and not feel the magnetic force that Speed were putting out the whole time.

Speed are fresh off dropping their debut full-length Only One Mode on Flatspot/Last Ride just one week ago, and they played tons of highlights from that album plus fan favorites from their earlier EPs like set-closing anthem “Not That Nice.” As good as their records are, Speed are a band that really need to be seen live to get the full experience. They played their whole set under bright white lights in front of a big screen that projected their logo in Windows 98-looking fashion, and they played their fucking hearts out. Speed had four mics on stage so they could really pull off their gang vocals just as effectively as they do on record, and part of why it works so well is that just about every member of Speed could front a band if they wanted to. Jem turned lead vocals over to his bandmates a couple times, trading places for one song with his brother (bassist Aaron Siow), and also handing the mic to guitarist Dennis Vichidvongsa, at which point NYHC legend Mike Dijan (of Crown of Thornz, Breakdown, and a bunch of other bands) hopped on stage to fill in for Dennis. And, to the delight of everyone in the room, Jem broke out the flute. The whole set was just an all-out riot, and you could tell that the crowd got more and more into it as it went on. Shouts of “SPEEEEEEEEED” (à la “Bruuuuuuuce”) echoed throughout the audience multiple times, and Speed had a decent-sized pit going from the start. But as their set was nearing its end, the pit exploded and took over almost the entire dancefloor. Considering how wild it was for an opening set at a show that would’ve sold out with no openers, I’m very curious to see how crazy it gets when Speed come back to NYC on their headlining tour with TUI offshoot Angel Du$t and Bay Area faves Big Boy (that hits Brooklyn’s Elsewhere Hall on September 24 with local support from Long Island’s Hangman).

The pictures in this post are by Rob Menzer and those continue below, along with some fan-shot videos and Have Heart’s setlist. Have Heart just reissued their two full-lengths and we’ve got exclusive vinyl variants available right now in the BV shop, along with some exclusive Fiddlehead vinyl. We’ve also got an exclusive black & white vinyl variant of the Speed album.

Have Heart @ Brooklyn Monarch – 7/19/24 Setlist (via)
Life Is Hard Enough
Watch Me Sink
The Same Son
Bostons
The Machinist
The Unbreakable
On That Bird in the Cage
No Roses, No Skies
Intro
Lionheart
To Us Fools
Something More Than Ink
Pave Paradise
Armed With a Mind
Hard Bark on the Family Tree
Watch Me Rise