Present Sight: Kathy Kave Benefit Show: Give/ Protester / Line of Sight / Corrective Measure / Combatant

On a Sunday night in a construction filled Downtown Bangor, we raised $517 for Kathy Kave. For those of you who don't know, Kathy Kave was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) and has been fighting the fight for several months now. Mike King has set up a GOFUNDME for her which I will link below, to help contribute towards medical costs. Braden Sinclair booked this show a few months back for Corrective Measure's last show since him moving to D.C. This couldn't be a more perfect gig to go towards such a great cause. I never really vent out on the blog here, but I just wanted to share my personal thoughts on how much Kathy and The Kave have meant to me over the years. The first Kave show I ever went to was on June 22nd, 2011.

I was a Freshman in High School and I was Fifteen years old. I remember begging my parents to let me go to the show, and it was kind of hard to convince them to let me go to a place called, "The KAVE" in the back woods of Bucksport, Maine. But, they let me go, and it was one of the most important days of my life. It was the day I realized what hardcore was all about, and the only person I can thank for that is Kathy. With going to Kave shows throughout High School I learned to be myself, I learned respect is the most important value a person can have, and that it is not given, but it is earned, and I learned a lot about hardcore history. I can't tell you how many times I sat with Kathy and talked to her about old shows that happened at The KAVE, there were flyers plastered across the back wall by the kitchen (Which is where you can purchase the best pizza in the world). You can ask all these older big name bands about The KAVE, and they will tell you about how welcoming Kathy was, she treated the venue like her home, because it was. It is literally in her back yard. I'll never forget the first time Kathy let one of my bands open a show and how crazy I thought she was. She let me and my sixteen year old friends open up a gig for Biohazard! We were awful, but she told us after our set that the reason why she let us play was, because we were the next generation, the young bloods who have always respected the KAVE and go to every show that was put on out there and that we have the true spirit of what hardcore is about. I'll never forget that experience and how much it meant to play on that same stage that all my favorite bands had played on. This is just one small story of my 5 years spent at the KAVE. I played there with numerous of bands I was in throughout the years, but something has been stuck in my head since last Sunday. John of Give asked a simple question during their set, "What's the best band in Maine?" That really stuck with me, because the only answer given out was "Combatant". Not to bag on Combatant, because I think they are a really sick band, but it was kind of eye opening to think that with Corrective Measure calling it quits, that there is only one hardcore band left in our state. It made me think back to when I first started getting into shows, and how many bands there were and how many gigs there were, and I really miss that. I really do. I think what we all need to do as a scene is to group together, start bands, and build the scene back up. We need to do what Kathy did, and put Maine on the map again. We are definitely all capable to get the ball rolling again, so let's do it! Well anyways, here's the pictures from the gig. I will have Links below to check the bands out!

COMBATANT
https://combatant.bandcamp.com/