Modern Minstrels

Mics Are For Singing, Not For Swinging

Eric and I went to see Jimmy Eat World with Taking Back Sunday and Mates of State in Oakland last night. It was at the Henry J Kaiser Arena (the basketball arena for a local college). Eric and I think there were about 1500 people at the show, so it's definitely the biggest show I've been to in quite some time.

We got there just as Mates of State's set started. They were composed of a female keyboardist and male drummer and they shared singing duties. A couple of their songs sounded a bit Arcade Fire-esque, though not nearly as complex given they only had two instruments. Overall they were pretty good. Though for some reason I had thought The Format were opening, but I guess they were only on the first half of the tour. So I was a little disappointed about not seeing getting to see The Format.

Taking Sunday were up next. The lights dimmed and some really epic sounding music played. Music that upon hearing you would expect one of the greatest bands on earth to come out...or a band that is just really full of themselves, and TBS is certainly the latter. Now that I think about it Good Charlotte did some similar shit on their tour, so there you go.

I wanted to enjoy Taking Back Sunday, I really did. They just really weren't that exciting to watch. Most of their songs sounded a lot different than the album versions. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, different effects on the guitar perhaps. And Adam used some sort of Robotizer on his voice for some songs which really didn't sound that good. I was amazed at how still the crowd was for most of the performance. The most jumping around was done during Your So Last Summer (too bad Flava Flav wasn't with them) and Cute Without the 'e' Cut From the Team. But I was really expecting a pretty crazy crowd for their set. The band just really never got the crowd into the show. During all of TBS's set there was only a small circle pit during part of one song. To contrast during all of Jimmy Eat World's encore there was a huge circle pit with ton's of people dancing. I will say I really enjoyed them breaking out the acoustic guitar for New American Classic and then following up that song with Cute Without the 'e'. That was definitely the best part of their entire set. The one other good thing I have to say about TBS is they played all their songs in one stretch and didn't do the whole lame encore thing.

Jimmy Eat Wold came on next and this is definitely who everyone was there to see. They opened by having Jim come on stage and singing (with no instruments) the chorus to Futures, and then the band came on one by one adding background parts and then they jumped into a song from Clarity. I really couldn't even begin to compose a setlist, but they definitely played a lot of songs with a good mix from Futures, Bleed American, and Clarity. They played a great set and interacted with the crowd very well. People were jumping, dancing, and singing pretty much constantly. I even enjoyed their performance of The Middle which is probably one of the most overplayed radio songs of all time. Jimmy Eat World put on a great show, and I definitely recommend seeing them if you get a chance.

New Music Recommendations

I updated my music recommendations for the week in the sidebar. I'm not sure if I'll always make an official entry when I update the recommendations, but I wanted to talk at length about a couple of them.

First up is the album Based on a True Story by The Starting Line. Let me just say: Wow! This album is so much more than I expected. I don't put it in quite the same class as Deja Entendu and Forget What You Know, but there's no denying this album his a huge leap from Say It Like You Mean It. You still get the fun poppy hooks and catchy choruses but there's also a lot more this time around. No longer is the lyrical content strictly songs about girls. The album's title is Based on a True Story and it seems to be just that. Lots of lyrics about being on the road, being in a band, and generally growing up. And Kenny has become quite a musician, as he is credited with Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Wurlitzer, Piano, Glockenspiel, Bongos, Synths, and Harpsichord. Very impressive. I loved the acoustic album they put out a couple years ago, so I was very happy to hear a new acoustic ballad in the form of the song Photography. This album is definitely going to be getting lots listens and is sure to make my Top 5 albums of the year.

The next album recommendation is Songs for Silverman by Ben Folds. The first time I listened to this album no one song really jumped out at me and it just sort of all blended together. After a few more listens though the album has really grown on me. I listened to it at least 3 full times at work today. The songs Bastard and Landed have started to stick out as a couple of my favorites. The entire album is pretty mellow and really just pleasant to listen to. I highly recommend it to everyone reading this.

Ben's going on tour soon with Rufus Wainwright and you can be sure I'll be at that show. Also, Nick pointed me to this interview with Ben by The Onion AV Club. If you like Ben Folds, you should definitely give that read. It talks about the weird area he falls into where he doesn't really get much if any radio play, and yet he sells out huge venues everywhere he plays.

Song recommendations for the week include Grazed Knees by Snow Patrol who I saw in concert last week. Sarah had mentioned this song to me as being one of her favorites, and I have to agree. It's definitely a sad song, and yet there's something uplifting about it at the end, sorting giving you hope that everything's going to be ok.

The next song is Gravity by Days Away from their just released album Mapping an Invisible World. This is another mellow song. I really like the way the song sounds during the lyrics "Hey you, over there, is gravity getting you down?".

The last song recommendation, We Can All Get Along With Dinosaurs, I already posted about the other day.

Woo, so this post ended up a bit longer than expected. Anyways, enjoy the music!

We can all live with dinosaurs

Saw this linked to on AP.net. Matt Pryor of The Get Up Kids and New Amsterdams is putting out a children's CD. There's three demo songs for download on that site. I dig it. And this quote from Matt at the end of the article is great:

"My wife was joking that I'm going to do this kids music, and you can listen to that until you're about 14. Then when you go into your angsty teenage phase, you can listen to The Get Up Kids stuff. Then when you go to college, you can start listening to The New Amsterdams," he says. "It's like my own little Viacom."