The legendary New Jersey mathcore veterans in The Dillinger Escape Plan played a special benefit show at Flemington DIY a few weeks back. Team DHA’s Nick Polis was there to witness and photograph the special night.
The show was open to those who had tickets for The Dillinger Escape Plan’s show the following night in Philly with any remaining space filled by lucky fans mere moments before the start of the show. Other than the ticket, a donation of two cans for the local soup kitchen was required. For those who aren’t aware, Flemington DIY is a non-profit art space that is heavily involved in the local community that holds slightly over 250 people. So, for a band like this to play there, considering earlier this year they sold out three nights in a row at the 2,700 cap Brooklyn Paramount, it was truly a big deal for fans of them and the genre alike.
Kicking off the night was New Jerseys Stress Spells. The band showed rather quickly why they were chosen to open for this show, with a sound that greatly compliments Dillinger’s heavy and technical style. They put on an amazing set that the already full room absolutely loved. Despite being a considerably newer group compared to other bands brought out to open for the Calculating Infinity anniversary shows, they had the crowd engaged as if they had been around forever.
Next up was the one and only The Dillinger Escape Plan. I’ve seen these guys a handful of times before this show, specifically the first and third Calculating Infinity anniversary shows in Brooklyn, but this was a whole other beast. That was shown right from the start when during their opening track “The Mullet Burden”, vocalist Dimitri Minakakis walked directly into the crowd within seconds and guitarist Ben Weinman put his guitar down and jumped on top of the crowd with a mic stand, nearly taking out my eye in the process.
The early signs of this being more like an old-school show from The Dillinger Escape Plan at a VFW or basement were confirmed when Dimitri told the crowd that, if you saw them before 2001, that’s what the show was going to be like. Although, by that time he had started a chicken fight in the pit, Ben jumped off of his speaker cabinet at least twice, and the crowd basically ate a microphone given that I saw it disappear and never return, all within the first two songs.
At this point I knew I was in for a long night, as The Dillinger Escape Plan played on, the crowd went crazier and crazier. There was even a moment when the band’s sound engineer, who had been standing on a countertop in the back of the room crowdsurfed to the front of the room, and I mean for fun not because he needed to fix anything. I think I saw Ben over my head more than I saw him in front of me, and with the way the crowd was moving, I couldn’t even see guitarist James Love nor bassist Liam Wilson for most of the set.
By the end of the show, the crowd went from a respectable distance away, to right up against the drum set. As they had been for all of their anniversary shows, The Dillinger Escape Plan pulled out “43% Burnt” to close the night, Ben pulled himself along the room by the rafters, jumped on top of the crowd, went back on top of his amp, and kicked over his speaker cabinet, almost taking me out with it, and then ended the song, and the night, with his guitar held high in triumph standing atop Billy Rymer’s bass drum.
Fans old and new were talking after the lights came back on, with day-one fans talking about when this would have been a tame night for The Dillinger Escape Plan, while the new fans continued voicing their awe of the experience. I’ve been lucky enough to see some intimate and exclusive shows in my time, from special acoustic sets, to basement shows, to Rocks Off NYC concert cruises, but this was a totally different beast. A show that I, and the rest of the crowd at Flemington DIY, will never forget.
The Dillinger Escape Plan played a 13 song set that consisted of:
The Mullet Burden
Destro’s Secret
The Running Board
Calculating Infinity
Jim Fear
Sugar Coated Sour
4th Grade Dropout
Abe the Cop
Variations on a Cocktail Dress
Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin cover)
Clip the Apex… Accept Instruction
43% Burnt
Information about Flemington DIY can be found HERE!
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