TROPHY SCARS: Energetic, gritty, heartfelt rock

Story and photos by Eli Zeger

TROPHY SCARS (CD Release Show) – Mexicali Live, Saturday May 3, 2014

Teaneck’s Mexicali Live was filled with a hundred teens and 20-somethings hungering for awesome Morristown rockers Trophy Scars. My friend Carrigan and I stood with the fans at the foot of the stage, desperately waiting for the whiny, generic pop punk intermission music to cease its merciless and seemingly endless hell. By now, half an hour had gone by since the final openers Those Mockingbirds closed their set (Science and Nettyrose preceded them). At exactly 10:22, the headliners took the stage. Trophy Scars gave Mexicali Live a marvelous, hour-long dose of energetic, gritty, and heartfelt rock music.

This show celebrated the release of Holy Vacants. The album is conceptual, describing the rampant angel-killing spree of a couple yearning for eternal youthhood, after they’d discovered that angels’ body cells contained the Fountain of Youth (read more about Holy Vacants in my review of the album).

They began the show with the bombastic, explosive track “Qeres.” A herd of sweaty hipster men exuberantly belted out the lyrics to Holy Vacants tracks like “Archangel” and “Crystallophobia,” while frontman Jerry Jones - clothed in a slick, skintight suit and a purple tie tucked into his dress shirt - cooly maneuvered his way across the stage. Jones is an uncanny collage of classic frontmen: he has the stony physiognomy of Morrissey, the raw swagger of James Brown, and the guttural angst of Tom Waits. The band was also superb instrumentally. Guitarist John Ferrara shredded bluesy guitar riffs, while drummer Brian Ferrara beat out chest-punching grooves.

After a one-song encore of their sludgy track “Gutted,” Trophy Scars finished their high-spirited performance a little after 11:30. The three opening acts weren’t that interesting and there was a sacrilegious rule of no moshing allowed. However, Trophy Scars overrode these complaints, and I’d totally see them again. They played excellently.

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