"Stay up all night and sleep all day, we were smart kids with too much to say. And we were so, so sure that they were missing out, They’re the ones who were missing out," sang Will Pugh on Tuesday night, October 27^th, in front of hundreds of screaming fans at the Gramercy Theater in New York City. That night, I was one of the lucky ones who got to witness the performance of the amazing pop-punk band, Cartel.

In addition to lead singer Will Pugh, Cartel is made up of four other members: Joseph Pepper, Nic Hudson, Jeff Lett and Kevin Sanders. They are close friends from Atlanta, Georgia, who met in high school. They have been together since 2003 and have been through a lot of ups and downs during their career. However, they’ve managed to persevere in the face of all those problems. This can be attributed to the band’s unique sound that differs from a lot of mainstream music. This tour promoted their third major album, Cycles, which came out early October.

The Concert was incredible; the band compiled a set of songs from all three of their albums and even came on for an encore, where they blew everyone away with their performance of the song that put them on the map, "Honestly."

Along with Cartel there were three additional bands that had the audience dancing and screaming. The bands that accompanied them on their tour were The Bigger Lights, The Summer Set, and This Providence. They were bands that I hadn’t heard of before and weren’t well known, but everyone was really pleased with what they heard, including me. Overall, the concert was a memorable experience; all the bands played an impressive selection of songs and the venue was perfect. The Gramercy’s small stage made it very intimate. If Cartel is ever in your town, and you’re interested in a unique band, you should look into buying tickets.