by Viviana Mendoza
Some shows are about sound. This one was about release. At August Hall in San Francisco, four bands came together to remind a packed room why live music still matters. It was a night to yell, to connect, to feel everything all at once. From poetic chaos to melodic nostalgia, it was a lineup that built up and broke open in all the right ways.
Opening the Wound: Drought
Drought took the stage with intention. Their set built slowly, almost meditatively, layering melody and tension until everything cracked open. An Invitation and MacArthur Station offered flashes of post-rock dreamscape, while We’re the Flora and Wayfinding anchored the set with emotional weight. There’s a quiet intensity to this band that hits harder live. It doesn’t scream for your attention, it draws you in.
Knumears: Rising From the Noise
Knumears was a discovery in the best possible way. Their sound hit like a wave. Part chaos, part clarity, and completely alive. You could feel the influence of post-hardcore in their structure and delivery, but they’ve carved something that feels darker and more ethereal. Their set was built on tension, with vocals that tore through dense walls of distortion, and guitars that shimmered and crashed like light hitting water.
There’s a cinematic edge to their music, the kind that swells and swallows you whole before pulling back into something unexpectedly fragile. They reminded me of Holy Fawn, another band that plays with the same kind of beauty and violence intertwined. Both groups build soundscapes that feel less like songs and more like emotional environments — heavy, hypnotic, and oddly spiritual.
Knumears didn’t just fill the space. They transformed it. The mix of melody and dissonance gave their performance a sense of gravity, as if every note was falling from somewhere far above and landing exactly where it needed to. For a band I hadn’t heard before that night, they left a lasting mark.
Watching Tigers Jaw Felt Like Coming Home
Tigers Jaw has a way of pulling you into their world before you even realize it’s happening. Their set at August Hall felt like flipping through a journal, where every entry was wrapped in fuzzy guitar tones and raw confessions. It was moody and melodic, with moments that swung from melancholic reflection to bright pop-punk energy, all without ever losing their emotional grip.
Songs like Hum and I Saw Water hit especially hard, not just for their nostalgia, but because they still hold up as some of the most relatable, gut-punch songwriting of their era. You could hear people around the room softly singing along, caught somewhere between the past and the present. Commit and Plane vs. Tank vs. Submarine were standout moments, threading together the band’s signature vulnerability with that unmistakable Scranton DIY grit.
They didn’t have to do much to command the stage. There was a quiet confidence to how they moved through their set, letting the songs do the heavy lifting. Every track felt intentional. Every lyric felt like it came from somewhere real. Brianna’s vocals added a softness that wrapped around Ben’s steady presence, creating a layered, lived-in kind of harmony that you don’t get with many bands.
There’s something about Tigers Jaw that makes you feel like you’re part of something. It’s not loud or flashy. It’s honest. And in a room like August Hall, that honesty felt amplified.
Emotional Precision: Touche Amore
Touche Amore isn’t just one of my favorite bands, they’re one of the most important bands to me, full stop. Their music has soundtracked so many chapters of my life that it’s hard to separate memory from melody. To get to not only see them live again but to photograph them felt like a rare kind of alignment. It’s not every day you’re behind the lens for a band that has helped shape the way you process the world.
Their set at August Hall was everything I could’ve wanted. From the moment they opened with ~, the room felt locked into something unspoken. Jeremy Bolm’s delivery was raw, as always, but there’s a lived-in wisdom to the way he performs now like he’s still shouting into the void, but with the awareness that the crowd is right there shouting back.
They pulled from across their discography, and I was especially thrilled to hear so much from Stage Four and …To the Beat of a Dead Horse. Rapture hit like a thunderclap, its buildup and release as cathartic as ever. Honest Sleep, their encore closer, felt like a full-circle moment. It’s one of the first songs I ever loved by them, and hearing it live loud, feral, unfiltered made me feel like the version of myself who first screamed those lyrics in their bedroom is still very much alive.
The addition of the vocalist from Knumears on Honest Sleep gave the performance even more punch. Watching them move through the crowd together felt like a reminder that this music was never meant to stay on the stage. It’s meant to be lived in, screamed back, held tight.
It was sweaty and visceral and intimate. For a band that built their legacy on sincerity, Touche Amore gave us every reason to believe it still matters.
Final Thoughts: All In, All Night
What made this show unforgettable wasn’t just the music. It was the sense of shared catharsis. Every band brought something different, and together they created a full emotional spectrum. From Drought’s gentle dissonance to Touche Amore’s brutal clarity, the night held space for vulnerability, nostalgia, anger, and release.
August Hall became more than a venue. It became a container for everything we carried in with us. And for a couple of hours, we let it all out.
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