By Matt Kiernan

Titus Andronicus brought their aggressive sound to Toad’s Place on Sunday, turning the show’s atmosphere into something similar to that of a hardcore concert, with kids throwing themselves around the room to the politically charged music.

Andronicus made a stop at the venue to promote their newly released LP, The Monitor.

“Let’s pretend we’re at the ’80s dance party downstairs,” said Andronicus’s lead singer Patrick Stickles after the thrashing that was happening between the attendees got out of control.

It was a bit of a slap in the face for Titus Andronicus, garage rockers the Babies, pop rock band My Heart is Joy and those who attended the concert to have to be crammed into the venue’s upstairs sports bar, while an ’80s party was happening downstairs where most of the venue’s concerts are held.

Many people were forced to stand behind a glass divider or around a corner from where the bands were performing, either from avoiding going into the pit of people pushing each other or from the lack of room.

The lack of a proper stage also made it so that people in the back couldn’t see the bands perform, but could only listen to their songs.

The support of Andronicus’s music could be heard throughout their fans who attended, as they sung along to songs off their new album such as “A More Perfect Union,” “Titus Andronicus Forever” and “Richard II.”

At one point the thrashing got so out of control that the band had to say they’d only perform slower songs until they felt the crowd could control itself. This was followed by the band performing possibly the quietest song on their new album, “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future.”

The connection between Stickles and the crowd could be felt as he solemnly sung into the microphone, “You’ll always be a loser.”

Right after this the band kicked into another song, and Stickles went into the crowd to perform, leading himself up to a glass divider, which he climbed on top of and crowd surfed his way back to the front.

Along the way he reached for anything he could find, a pipe lit by Christmas lights, wires and a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. The audience was overwhelmingly happy to toss around the singer of a band they loved.

This gave the crowd a recharge and caused them to continue the pushing they were doing before the previous song.

Their performance ran well over an hour, with all of the members putting everything they had into their instruments and let the sweat ring out from them. Stickles’ guitar playing was also greatly notable, with his guitar solos being perfectly shredded, while having no change in vocal quality between playing and singing.

The Babies, who consist of members of the Vivian Girls and Woods, were generally well received by the crowd who nodding along to their lo-fi, tambourine-filled music.

Andronicus and the Babies will be touring together until a final stop in Philadelphia, Penn.