Fulcrum point

The Karl Hendricks Trio didn’t have the melodic strength of the openers but more than made up for it with pure muscle. The three-piece’s power chord push was broken up by the incredible Jake Leger’s hard-hitting shifty rhythms, and the way front man Karl Hendricks threw himself into hefty solos was reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr.'s wild man J. Mascis.

Last up was Ben Barnett’s Kind of Like Spitting. Starting off acoustically and later joined by Brian Grant, Barnett shouted through a half-dozen songs of love and loss that were impressive lyrically but wore a bit thin, as the vocals never veered from the tone of wailing. Once Grant joined him for a dual acoustic-guitars-and-vocals approach, the harmonies and energetic interplay between the two added much-needed dynamics as they played through some impressive covers, including Smog’s "A Hit" and Hank Williams Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends."