City of Caterpillar, Gillian Carter, The Caution Children @ Wills Pub. Orlando, FL

City of Caterpillar
Gillian Carter
The Caution Children
Sunday January 22, 2023
Wills Pub. Orlando, Florida
Photos & review by Jeffrey Howard.

The last time I saw City of Caterpillar was 2002 way back at local venue Stone Soup Collective down there on South Orange Avenue. Flashbacks, right? The band came to town at least three times that I remember. Each time they were pretty remarkable, even from my terrible memory.

When it was announced I was pretty excited though Kristin and I had plans to be a vendor at a Rockabilly Festival the night before down in Immokalee, which is basically in the Florida Everglades. It’s several hours away.

We ended up making it back to Orlando in time for the show, even if we stopped a million times at thrift stores and looking for a pair of shoes for me since I got blisters from standing all day.

The line was already down the block to get into Wills Pub. We didn’t have tickets so we were concerned if it was sold out or not. Luckily, we got in and made our way to the front. Right in back of us in line were members of one of the opening bands at the 2000 show. How crazy!

Opening up were local legends Gillian Carter and The Caution Children, both whom share members, notably Bob on bass and Tony (also Flashlights) on drums. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of these bands. A lot of the crowd are all friends and familiar with their music so there was plenty of screaming along and “skits” put on by The Caution Children which involved a mattress with blankets….. and somehow a person sleeping then waking up. Lots of crowd surfing and the singer spent as much time off the stage as on. Fuckin’ great!

Gillian Carter took the stage next with mastermind metalcore guitarist/singer Logan Rivera just ripping into musical membrane that is the Wills Pub stage. More crowd surfing ensued.

So twenty-one years later City of Caterpillar can still put on a great harsh post-hardcore set. They may not be breaking bottles or crushing cinderblocks in the literal sense but do musically. The passage of time just made them laser focused. I couldn’t tell you what songs they did, it’s been so long since I pulled out their CDs or record singles. Every song was as the first time I heard them. They were intense. So glad this band is still together. I picked up their latest album Mystic Sisters that came on on Relapse Records last year.