Let's Jump in the Time Machine and Watch a Set by the Promise Ring Back in 1997

Thanks to Dan Zimmerman and his YouTube channel, TwentyFiveAfter, you can feel the sweat from the best Midwest emo band.

The Promise Ring publicity photo circa 1997. Credit unknown.

If you enjoy this bit of Friday Fun, why not share or subscribe to Check This Out!? You’ll receive fresh tunes, reviews, playlists and more in your inbox three times a week while supporting this entirely independent music e-rag. Rad!

Back in the late nineties and early aughts, I can comfortably say that Midwest emo dominated a good chunk of my CD booklets. As I’ve mentioned here recently, this subset of the sadboi genre got its name largely thanks to the Chicago scene that included bands like American Football, Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, and Braid. Not everyone was from Illinois, though, with the Pacific Northwest also a significant factor. Sunny Day Real Estate was one of the bands that transitioned emo from the D.C. hardcore scene, and I’d even argue that the first few Death Cab For Cutie albums and This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, the debut by Modest Mouse fits into the genre.

As much as I love these bands (though I’ve got well-defined cutoffs in the Death Cab and Modest Mouse discographies), my favorite group from this era hails from a few hours north of Chicago in Milwaukee. Burning fast and bright during a seven-year run, The Promise Ring not only had the most emo of emo band names but also matured brilliantly from their debut, 30 Degrees Everywhere, to their highly underrated, more experimental album Wood/Water in 2002.

In 1997, the band released Nothing Feels Good, by far their most-known album, which leans more into power pop than their Midwest emo beginnings (the transition would be complete two years later with the excellent Very Emergency). The album’s foundations aren’t something that would typically lead to success. According to frontman Davey von Bohlen, the record was recorded in five short days with little vision of how they wanted it to sound while von Bohlen worked through a bout of illness. While he has never sounded like a classically trained singer, which is one of the things I find most enduring about The Promise Ring, von Bohlen’s vocal takes undoubtedly aren’t perfect on the influential record.

Between von Bohlen battling a brain tumor, relentless touring, and a jump to a major label in Anti-, an Epitaph sister label, The Promise Ring crumbled only months after Wood/Water’s release. For most fans, the band’s end seems most permanent outside of a few reunion shows here and there.

That’s why seeing and hearing something from The Promise Ring in 2023 is so cool, especially a previously unreleased show from the Nothing Feels Good tour.

Thanks to Dan Zimmerman and his YouTube channel, TwentyFiveAfter, here’s a real gift for fans of The Promise Ring with a show he recorded 26 years ago this week. Sandwiched between sets from Siren Six and Rye Coalition, two bands that I’d be lying to you if I said I was familiar with, is a raw, high-energy show from The Promise Ring as they run through primarily new material from Nothing Feels Good, which had only been out for about three weeks.

Recorded on handheld VHS, don’t expect soundboard quality from this set. Zimmerman is standing right next to bassist Scott Beschta, who is understandably heavy in the mix, and it’s a fun perspective as Beschta is a great bass player. His fretboard runs are much more apparent here than on the album's original mix. It’s mainly enjoyable to look back at the audience’s fashion and passion for the music, as there’s obviously no cell phone in sight. It’s a bunch of college kids, as the set is at The Whole Music Club, a legendary spot on the University of Minnesota campus that is still around.

Damn, this student union had one helluva booker.

Did you see a sweet show in 1997? If so, let me know in the comments!