Modern Minstrels

The Tension and The Terror

Straylight Run posted another mp3 on their page called The Tension And The Terror. It's quite good, just like the rest of their songs. According to their webpage, a couple more songs should be posted very soon. Also, I love the fact that they post the lyrics to all of their songs as well. I really can't wait until their show in Cleveland on September 13.

40 Hour Train Back to Penn

The Movielife are playing a show at Peabody's on September 23 and tickets are only $5. I saw The Movielife last February with Finch and they were pretty good. I've never been to Peabody's and $5 is a nice cheap concert, so I'm definitely thinking about going to this show.

While I'm posting about concerts, Something Corporate will be at Tower City with Mest and Good Charlotte on Sep. 28. As great as SoCo is, I think I'll pass on this concert. Amphitheaters aren't as fun for concerts and SoCo and Mest are opening for Good Charlotte, so they probably won't play long sets. Something Corporate is set to tour with RX Bandits and Mae in the November/December time frame, so I can wait until then to see them. It'll be interesting to see the RX Bandits, I wasn't a fan of their stuff on the Drive Thru DVD, but I've heard good things about their new album.

Yellowcard Rock

Yellowcard will be at the Agora Ballroom on Thursday, September 11. Yet another can't miss show. Two amazing concerts in 3 days (the other being Straylight Run on the 13th). I can't wait for that week.

Straylight Run

Straylight Run posted three mp3s on their webpage today. I highly recommend you check them out. After hearing them, I'm even more excited to see them at the Grog Shop next month.

New Concert Alert #2

Finally! I just checked The Starting Line's homepage and they finally have a Cleveland date for the Drive Thru Invasion Tour. It's Saturday October 4th, the day after the Columbus show I thought I was going to end up going to. There are supposed to be "special guests" on most if not all of the dates. If I had to pick the special guest, I'd definitely choose Finch. They're so good live.

New Concert Alert

Saturday September 13th at the Grog Shop - Straylight Run (new band started by John Nolan formerly of Taking Back Sunday) and Jamison/Parker. These are both brand new bands, and this will be the first tour for both of them. I don't want to miss this because it's going to be a great show.

Update: Just read this interview with John and Shaun of Straylight Run. Sounds like piano is a big part of their songs. W00t, more piano rock. Says Shaun: "I would just like to say that it’s the perfect blend between Thursday, Saves The Day, Dashboard Confessional, and Jimmy Eat World." Sounds good to me, can't wait to hear their stuff. They said they're going to try and have stuff available for download soon.

Rockin' The Suburbs

Ok, I'm finally getting around to blogging about the Ben Folds concert last Tuesday. The concert was up in Concord, which is in the northern East Bay. Five of us (all interns) left Apple around 4 and drove to the BART station in Freemont. There's a BART station in Concord and they had free shuttles running to the pavilion where the concert was. The one problem with the shuttles were they apparently only left after a BART train arrived. After we got to Concord, we grabbed some food from Burger King and then got on the shuttle. Unfortunately, it waited at least 15 minutes before leaving, so we ended up missing one or two of Ben's songs, so that kind of sucked. We were really surprised there wasn't an opening band. The one cool part about coming in late is that just as we were walking in Ben said "And this next song you can get on the iTunes Music Store."

Ben put on a great show. It was just him and a piano, like when he performed at CWRU. He's so good at getting the crowd involved. He played a couple new songs off of Speed Graphic that were quite good, so I'll need to download that from the ITMS here soon. He also played Brick, which I don't think he played at CWRU. When he was introducing Brick, he said he hadn't played it in a long time, but he was ok with playing it now. He also did an impression of Radiohead's lead singer Thom Yorke. I think it was in reference to Thom saying a similar thing about Creep.

After Ben's set was over, we walked around for a bit. We walked past this one girl with spiky hair that looked at us and yelled "Fuck Tori Amos, YEAAAAHH." We couldn't help laughing.

There's not much to say about the Tori Amos portion of the concert. She's an excellent singer, but not much of a performer. By the time the 4th song hit, I was wondering if she was going to say anything at all to the crowd. She did talk all of twice throughout the concert. She did the whole encore thing, but most bands/artists that do that say something before the "last song", but she didn't. So she just kind of left for a few minutes and it got dark, and then she came back. Kinda strange. Even given all that, I still enjoyed her singing.

Space and Down

I decided to write down there lyrics to SoCo's new songs, Space and Down, so here they are. Classic SoCo sound and songwriting. Actually, let me take that back. I said, classic SoCo, but after thinking about it for a few minutes, I couldn't actually compare them to any of their other songs and yet there's no doubt they are SoCo songs, if that makes sense. So, it's the SoCo sound, only much more refined and so, so good.

Space

Home, is this a quiet place where you should be alone? Is this where the tortured and the troubled find their own?

I don't know, but I can tell this isn't you, your cover's blown.
Oh no, don't you dare hang up this phone.

Hey! Give me space so I can breathe.
Give me space so I can sleep.
Give me space so you can drown in this with me.

In this place, a lonely escapade in outerspace,
There's no antidote for irony.
You say that you have, when you know that you don't.
And you'll say that you care when you know that you won't.

Down

Let's get drunk you can drive us to the harbor.
Wish upon a star, but do you know what stars are?
Balls of fire burning up the black space.
Falling from the landscape.
Exploding in the face of God.

Lets get crazy, talk about our big plans,
Places that you're going, places that I haven't been.
Build my walls up, concrete castle.
Keep this kingdom free of hassle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

*Chorus*
But are you sad?
Echo in the emptiness, all around.
But you can't change his loneliness.
Look what you found, I'm falling down.

Taste the saline rolling down your cheekbone.
Tell me that your alone.
Tell me on the telephone.
Feel your heartache,
Breaks within your chest now.
Try to get some rest now,
Sleep's not coming easy for a while, child, child.

Chorus