20 Years of Stick To Your Guns

"Orange County, This One's For You!"

The Orange County hardcore band, Stick To Your Guns, is 20 years old. As one of the longest living of their kind, it is rare for a band like them to last this long. From 2003-2022, the band released 7 studio records and 1 studio EP.

It was last year at some point that I had been thinking how we will never see Stick To Your Guns play deep-cuts. They have so many hits and only so much time in their live set. Songs like "Where The Sun Never Sleeps" and "I Choose Nothing" are some of my favorite hardcore songs of all time, and I made peace with never seeing STYG play them.

I was floored with excitement when these four 20 YEARS OF STYG shows were announced and they would be playing songs off every one of their records, in their hometown of Anaheim, CA. Without having a solid plan of traveling 3,000 miles to see my favorite hardcore band, I bought tickets for every night.

Chain Reaction

The legendary hardcore music venue seems to be where Stick To Your Guns considers their home. The walls all lined with band t-shirts and ironic signs that say "NO CROWD SURFING NO CROWD MOSHING OR YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT." Fear not for there was plenty of pitting!

Eight Records in Four Nights

Celebrating 20 years, Stick To Your Guns played songs from two records each night, along with a few fan favorites to close the sets out. Songs ranged from the usuals, like "Against Them All" and "Nobody" to songs they never play like "Enough Is Enough" and "Universal Language."

Night one consisted of songs from 'For What It's Worth' and 'The Hope Division.' Opening the night with "This Is More" as fans rushed onto the stage to sing along and continued playing songs that you'll never hear at a show. These shows are turning out to be a greatest hits weekend!

For night two, the band played songs from 'True View' and 'Better Ash Than Dust.' At one point, Jesse Barnett said "We didn't expect tonight to sell out because we feel these are two records that people from North America don't really fuck with... It means a lot to us that y'all are here and it means a lot that these songs mean anything to you at all so it doesn't matter wether this room is empty or wether this room is full, thank you for being here no matter what." I personally was surprised this was the last show to sell out because these are some of the band's best songs in my opinion.

Night three consisted of some of their heaviest songs off 'Disobedient' and the latest release from 2022, 'Spectre.' When the flyer from this night was shared on social media, the band said "Please do not die in the pit." Stick To Your Guns opened the set with arguably their biggest song, "Nobody" then continued on with more songs from 'Disobedient' like "What Choice?" and "RMA." Only thing that would have made it a little sweeter is if Scott from Terror did his part on "I Choose Nothing." Next up for the night is their newest record "Spectre", which came out last summer. It was awesome to hear them play "Who Dares" and "Instruments of the End." Two songs that they haven't been able to play at shows in North America.

It was the fourth and final night, and songs from 'Comes From The Heart' and 'Diamond', a pivotal record for them, is what STYG played. There was no surprise as to how insane the crowd reaction would be. We all knew this night would be special. After the set was over, they closed out with the same song as they started the set on night one, "This Is More," but played it twice for no reason at all, and almost a third time. That was legendary!

The New Drummer of Stick To Your Guns

"Adam on the drums... You're gonna be seeing a lot more of him. This is our new drummer." - Jesse Barnett

Seeing this phenomenal drummer play 3 out of the 4 full sets showed us that Adam is perfect for this band. Not only did he rip 3 STYG sets, Adam also plays drums in other OCHC bands, Abrasion, Twist of Cain and Dare and played a total of 7 sets over the 4 nights!

The Future of Orange County Hardcore

STYG hand picked only OC locals to play the four nights. These would include Momentum, Desmadre, Barrio Slam, Apperson, Duhkha, Dare, Abrasion, Twist Of Cain, Firestarter and Knuckleheadz. The music that these bands are putting out is some of the best new hardcore and punk around. You can see why they were each hand picked.

SETLISTS