Modern Minstrels

Decemberists at The Warfield

The Decemberists rocked The Warfield last night, and I was there to enjoy every minute of it. They opened with The Crane Wife 3 and transitioned seamlessly into The Island. The set definitely leaned towards material from The Crane Wife, which was fine with me because that album is fantastic. For the encore they also treated us to a b-side from that album entitled, Culling Of The Fold.

In addition to the excellent tunes, Colin Meloy didn't fail to entertain the crowd in other ways as well. He thanked everyone for coming out tonight, even if it meant walking through The 'Loin. He regaled us with a tale of his walk to the venue that night, which involved him witnessing "the most blatant crack deal he'd ever seen".

Later on in the set Colin reached down into the crowd, mid-song, and got someone's cell phone. He then proceeded to type on it for a while. I assumed he was sending a text message to someone, but after a bit he held the phone up to his ear and then when he started singing again, held it to the microphone. After the song was over, he gave the cell phone back and said "by the way, that was his mom that I called." How great is that?

One last thing I need to add, is that The Warfield is one of my least favorite venues in SF. The main reason being that the sound is typically really bad. However, last night I thought the sound was pretty good, so yay for that.

All in all it was a really fun show. If you've not heard of The Decemberists before, you should definitely check them out and if you have a chance to catch them live, I highly recommend doing so.

A rough set list:

The Crane Wife

• The Crane Wife 3
• The Island: Come & See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel The Drowning
• Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
• O Valencia!
• The Perfect Crime #2
• Shankill Butchers
• Sons and Daughters
• The Crane Wife 1&2
• Culling of the Fold (b-side)

Picaresque

• We Both Go Down Together
• The Engine Drive
• 16 Military Wives

Castaways and Cutouts

• Odalisque
• A Cautionary Song
• The Legionnaire's Lament

Matt Nathanson at Sweetwater

Matt is currently on tour with Carbon Leaf, but before he left for the tour he did a special Bay Area show, which I (along with several of my co-workers) happily attended.

The show was at the SweetWater Saloon in Mill Valley (just north of SF), which was a fantastic, tiny venue. We ended up being only 3 or 4 rows back from the front, which was great. Matt came out wearing a larger sombrero, and thanked us all for coming because he knew everyone was only there because they "couldn't get tickets to see Guns N Roses" who were also playing that night. To ease the pain, he treated us to the intro of Sweet Child O' Mine. Oh, and he also invented a new word: pyronecrobestiality. Don't ask...

The set was a good mix of classic Matt songs and a bunch of stuff from the new full band album coming out later this fall. Highlight of the set was almost certainly the full band version of the new song Detroit Waves. Matt played that song solo when I saw him back in May and I loved it then. And the full band version rocked just as hard as expected.

It's been too long since the show for me to remember many more specific details, but needless to say, Matt was as entertaining as always. Also, I got my first ever setlist! I saw it setting on the keyboard after the show when I went back to the bathroom, but I felt kind of bad about just yoinking it, so I didn't. However, when I came out of the bathroom, Aaron (the keyboardist) was there putting equipment away, so I asked if I could have the set list and he said "Sure! It's not totally accurate, but it's all yours." w00t!

If his tour is coming near you, I highly recommend you go...I guarantee you will enjoy it. I know I'm hoping he does another special SF show after the tour ends.

Let's Tune Out By Turning On The Radio

Just got back from seeing The Format with Anathallo, Street To Nowhere, and Rainer Maria at Slim's. What a fantastic show!

Calista met me at Apple around 5 and we stopped by the always tasty Tacos Jalapa before heading up to the city. Traffic was really light the whole way, so we were there in plenty of time. It was just after 6 when we walked by Slim's and a line had already started to form (doors didn't open until 7). We didn't really feel like standing in line for a while so we walked around the area a bit and Calista found some interesting things to photograph.

We got back to Slim's around 6:45 or got our tickets from the will call window. The line for the door was a bit longer then when we were by earlier, but still wasn't too bad. We ended up waiting right next to The Format's bus, and after a while, Nate came out, much to the delight of this about 12 year old boy who had been waiting by the bus to get an autograph.

Once inside, I picked up one of The Format t-shirts (it's gray with the outline of a dog on it saying "Arf") and then we each got a pear cider (thanks to Corey for turning me onto that particular beverage a few weeks ago) from the bar.

Anathallo opened up the show, and were just as good as I had heard (including blowing up balloons during one song and releasing them into the crowd). They only played 5 or 6 songs, but said they'll be back in October or November at Bottom of the Hill. You'll definitely find me at that show.

Local band Street To Nowhere played next. I enjoyed their music, but what made really made their set enjoyable was how happy and excited they were just to be on stage playing. Also it seems a few of the band member's parents were in the crowd just in front of us and video taping it. Kinda cool.

The last opener was Rainer Maria. They were ok, but I really didn't get into them. I did comment to Calista that the bass player looked at bit like Charlie from Lost, to which she responded "oh, you're so hooked...and I take full credit".

Finally, The Format took the stage and opened up with Dog Problems (one of my favorite songs on their album of the same name). Their set is definitely in my top 5 all time. They were that good. Just full of energy and everyone was singing along with every song. They played every song that I really wanted to hear, including The First Single, On Your Porch, Tune Out, Janet, Snails, Inches and Falling, If Work Permits, and the aforementioned Dog Problems. My favorite song of the night was definitely On Your Porch (it's quite possibly my favorite song of theirs). A very, very close second was If Work Permits, which they ended the show with (transitioning directly from Inches and Falling just like on the album). Calista and I were both saying before the show that we really hoped they'd play that song, so that was the perfect end to an amazing set.

The Format's Setlist (approximate song order)

• Dog Problems
• Tie The Rope
• Wait, Wait, Wait
• Janet
• Give It Up
• Sore Thumb
• She Doesn't Get It
• Snails
• On Your Porch
• The First Single
• I'm Ready, I Am
• The Compromise

-----Encore--------

• Time Bomb
• Tune Out
• Inches and Falling
• If Work Permits

Death Cab at The Greek

Nick and I went to the Death Cab for Cutie show in Berkeley and it was a fantastic show as expected. Unfortunately, we got there a little late and missed Mates of State. By the time we got into venue, Spoon had just started playing. I enjoyed their set, especially given the fact that I wasn't all that familiar with their stuff (which is something I definitely need to remedy).

Death Cab put on a great set, which favored songs from Transatlanticism and Plans as well some of their standard older "hits" (We Laugh Indoors, Photobooth, Movie Script Ending). Making the night even more special was the fact that it was Ben Gibbard's 30th birthday. Towards the later half of the set, Chris Walla told the crowd that 9 years ago today, they had taken a road trip to San Francisco for Ben's 21st birthday and they had just recorded You Can Play These Songs With Chords. And that they never thought they'd still be doing this 9 years late.

Highlights of the set for me included Title and Registration, What Sarah Said (even though the crowd cheering after Ben sang the line "Love is watching someone die" was lame), the long instrumental breakdown in the middle of We Looked Like Giants, featuring Ben on his own drum set, and closing with Transatlanticism. This was my third time seeing Death Cab, and they have never disappointed. They're definitely a band I want to catch every time they're in the area.

Set List

• Passenger Seat
• Different Names For The Same Thing
• The New Year
• We Laugh Indoors
• Title and Registration
• Crooked Teeth
• Company Calls
• Company Calls Epilogue
• Soul Meets Body
• What Sarah Said
• Your Heart Is An Empty Room
• A Movie Script Ending
• The Sound Of Settling
• Photobooth
• Expo '86
• We Looked Like Giants
• Transatlanticism

Encore

• I Will Follow You Into The Dark (solo acoustic by Ben)
• I'm Coming Home (Sonics cover)
• Marching Bands of Manhattan

Brand New at The Fillmore

Last week, Nick and I went to see Brand New at The Fillmore. I've been anticipating this show more than any other show I've ever been to. I've literally been waiting 3 solid years to see Brand New. The last time I had a chance to see them was in 2003, just after Deja Entendu came out. They played somewhere in SF, but it was when I was at Apple during my internship, and I didn't have a car and wasn't familiar enough with the trains to get up there, so I ended up not getting a ticket to the show, thinking I'd surely be able to see them again soon enough.

Fortunately, the show was totally worth the wait. From opening note of Tautou to the incredibly moving closing of Play Crack the Sky, I was riveted. Deja Entendu is one of the best albums of all time, so hearing those songs (they played everything except Good to Know) live for the first time was just amazing, particularly Sic Transit Gloria and Okay, I Believe You But My Tommygun Don't. They also played a handful of songs off of Your Favorite Weapon (including SoCo Amaretto Lime, which thrilled me to no end) and a few new songs from their new album coming out this fall.

Though they didn't speak to the crowd a whole lot, there were a few, what I consider classic Jesse lines. First before playing Me vs Maradona vs Elvis, he says something like "So when we've been playing this song, people always cheer at this one part, and I don't know why. It's not happy song. When I wrote this song, I never expected people to be cheering about it". The song's basically about a guy that leads a girl just for a one night stand and regretting it and the line people cheered at was "it's ladies' night, all the girls drink for free". The other classic moment was towards the end of the set, when he was thanking the crowd and said "You guys have been probably the best audience on this tour". Just in the way he said it, he totally conveyed the "yes, I say this at every show, but you're going to cheer anyway" and of course we all did. The way he said it reminds me of the way he sings the line, "I would kill for the Atlantic, but I am paid to make girls panic while I sing".

So throughout their set, it seemed to me like Jesse was a bit distracted, or just depressed. I wasn't really expecting a lot of crowd interaction, but still something seemed a bit off. And when Jesse came back on stage to do the solo acoustic Play Crack the Sky, we found out why. He said he had something to say, but he wasn't sure exactly how to say it. He wanted to apologize if he seemed detached, but his head was in another place entirely. He said he didn't think he'd ever regret bringing his brother on this tour, but for an hour or two this afternoon, he did. He then said this song goes out to my brother and my parents and it will take more than a truck to tear us apart. And then he started playing Play Crack the Sky, which is a rather sad song to begin with. Coupled with this extra emotion, it was an incredibly touching experience. He played up until the last or second to last time before the chorus, and then he just sort of stopped. Vinnie came out and the two of them hugged for a few seconds and Vinnie walked off stage. I thought Jessie would leave as well, but he picked up his guitar and finished the song flawlessly. An incredibly emotional end to an amazing show.

On our way out of the venue I overheard one of the Fillmore employees talking and he said yes, the lead singer's brother got hit by a truck earlier in the day and was in the hospital, and they weren't even sure if they were going to do the show until about 5 minutes before the show was supposed to start. But I guess at that point, his brother was in pretty stable condition. I haven't heard anything about how his brother is doing, by I can only hope and pray he's making a speedy recovery.

Radiohead at the Greek

I went to see Radiohead at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley a few weeks ago with Nick, John, and Dan. This was my first time seeing Radiohead live, and wow, was it incredible. I feel like I should be able to write more about this show, but words can't do it justice. When they left the stage prior to the first encore, I couldn't believe they had already been playing for over an hour. Fortunately they came back for a 5 song encore, and a 2 song second encore.

Highlights of the show included the Paranoid Android, No Surprises, The Gloaming run in the middle of the set; True Love Waits transitioning seamlessly into Everything In Its Right Place; opening with Airbag; and the new song Bodysnatchers.

Here's the full set list.

I cannot wait to see Radiohead again. And if at all possible, I want to catch both shows the next time they are around. Normally I'm skeptical of seeing a band twice in a row, but given that there was pretty much zero overlap with their set the previous night, it would definitely be worth it. And if you've never seen them before, I highly recommend you do so as soon as possible.

Matt Nathanson in the Other Park

A couple weeks ago, a bunch of my friends from work and I went to see Matt Nathanson (with full band) perform a free show at St. James Park in San Jose. There was a surprisingly big crowd at the park, of course only about half the people had any idea who Matt was. Since this was a public, outdoor performance, Matt wasn't allowed to swear at all. This of course made many of his usually topics of between song conversation off limits, but he still managed to put on an entertaining show. Highlights included a cover/sing-a-long of Journey's Don't Stop Believin', Matt's PG version of the story behind Lost Myself in Search of You, and Matt getting some guy to clap for some 80's metal band. Oh, and before the show Nick got his picture taken with Matt. It was great getting to see Matt so soon after just seeing him a little over a month ago. Sadly now I must wait until his fall tour to have my face rocked off again.

NFG Summer Tour

AP.net reports New Found Glory will be doing a headlining tour at the end of the summer with Hit the Lights, The Early November, and Cartel in support. Consider me giddy as a school girl!

Matt Nathanson x2

Got to see my absolute favorite live performer, Matt Nathanson, not once, but twice this past weekend. That man can fucking put on a show. I don't care what kind of music you listen to or whether you normally go to concerts or not; you absolutely must see a Matt Nathanson show at least once in your life.

Friday's opener was Paula Kelley. She was alright. It's kind of funny how she has this really high, sing-songy voice, but the content of the songs she sang was more on the depressing/hearbroke side of things. Saturday's opener was Two Sheds. I enjoyed them quite a bit. Standard folk sound, but I really liked Caitlin's voice.

Matt was spectacular both nights. His ability to interact with the crowd is unparalleled. It's this ability that keeps his show very fresh. Normally I'd be very wary of going to see the same show two nights in a row because you know you're going to end up hearing close to the same set, and often even the same jokes/stories. Not so with Matt. The two sets only shared a handful of songs and he has a never ending supply of amusing stories and not to mention all the stuff that takes place on the spot as he's chatting with the crowd. I'm so glad I attended both shows.

One of my favorite lines from the first night was when he asked the crowd for requests and some girl asks for Answering Machine. His response was, "Come on, don't ask for that. You know I play that at every show". It was great. It really annoys me when people keep yelling out songs you know the band is going to play. Oh, he was also ripping on James Blunt the one night, which was hilarious.

Another thing about Matt is he loves the 80's. You can always count on a fun sing-a-long of a couple 80's tunes. We got to help him belt out Journey's Don't Stop Believin' on Friday and Suvivor's Eye of the Tiger on Saturday. We also covered a song by The Smiths for his wife and though not an 80's song did an excellent cover of Patty Griffin's Foregiveness.

While the covers are certainly lots of fun, the real good stuff is his original tunes. Some of the highlight songs for me were Illusions, New Coats and New Hats, coming down and playing Suspended without a microphone, and his new song Detroit Waves.

You can experience some of Matt's live show by picking up his new live album, At The Point. Or by checking out these very high quality recordings of a show on this past tour. But my recommendation is that you go see him in person this fall when he hits the road in support of the new album he's working on.

Dredg

First up on Nick's and my three concerts in as many days schedule was Dredg at the Fillmore last Thursday. The only opening act was Chi Cheng from the Deftones (bassist) reading poetry he had written. I wasn't really into it. The poetry wasn't bad, but it was about incredibly dark subject matter.

Dredg on the other hand totally rocked. I hadn't realized this, but they're actually from the Bay Area. I'm not going to even attempt to compose any kind of setlist, but needless to say they played for over an hour and a half and played pretty much all the songs from Catch Without Arms and a whole bunch of older stuff.

Probably the best part of the performance was just watching their drummer. He was incredibly intense and throughout the course of the show threw at least 20 drumsticks out into the crowd (in the middle of songs). Fun times.

And since the show was at The Fillmore, we got a spiffy free poster after the show.

Virgin College Mega Tour

Last night Andrew and I attended the Virgin College Mega Tour featuring Yellowcard, Mae, and Over It at San Jose State University. Andrew conveniently lives just 6 blocks from SJSU campus, so I parked at his place and we walked to the venue. The show was held at the "Event Center" which appeared to just be a gymnasium. Surprisingly, the place ended up being only half full, at most. It was a pretty large venue, but probably not a whole lot bigger than the Scene Pavillion in Cleveland where I saw SoCo and YC and that show was totally full.

Over It opened the show and I was definitely looking forward to seeing them. Silverstrand is just one of those fun albums you put on every once in a while. Unfortunately, only a few people in the crowd actually knew there stuff. But I give Over It credit for trying, and succeeding, to get the crowd moving for a few of their songs. ListenWatching Peter sing Partner in Crime was the highlight of the set. I look forward to seeing them again, hopefully in a crowd that actually knows their songs.

Over It Set List (not in order)

• Song from Timing is Everything
• Truth Is
• Shine (I think)
• Waiting
• New Song
• Partner in Crime
• Siren on the 101

Next up was the always excellent sounding Mae. They played a fairly long set with about a 50/50 song split between Destination: Beautiful and The Everglow. The one unfortunate thing about their set was they had to keep changing tunings and that broke up the flow of the songs a bit. A large majority of the crowd knew their stuff, so there was a good bit of singing along. Oh, and I was incredibly entertained at the little mosh pit that broke out during one of their early songs. Mae songs so do not lend themselves to moshing, so it was easily the most tame mosh pit I've ever seen.

Mae Set List (not in order)

• This Is The Countdown
• Someone Else's Arms
• Painless
• Cover Me
• All Deliberate Speed
• Embers and Envelopes
• Soundtrack for Our Movie
• Suspension
• At least 1 or 2 more

Yellowcard didn't get more than 30 seconds into Rough Landing, Holly before I gave up on letting their personal drama influence my enjoyment of their music. Simply put, Yellowcard knows how to rock and its impossible to not have a good time at one of their shows. As expected, they pretty much stuck with songs from Ocean Avenue and Lights and Sounds. However, they did give a shout out to old fans and played October Nights as well as the chorus of Rocket. I was also really happy that they played Back Home. Everyone at the show was definitely there to see YC. There was much dancing and moshing and crowd surfing, but it didn't get too crazy.

Yellowcard Set List (ordered by album)

• Rough Landing, Holly
• Lights and Sounds
• Down on My Head
• Sure Thing Falling
• 1 or 2 more from Lights and Sounds
• Way Away
• Breathing
• Ocean Avenue
• Empty Apartment
• Life of a Salesman
• Only One
• Believe
• Back Home
• October Nights
• chorus of Rocket

Upcoming Concerts

I've been slacking in concert attendance lately, having only attend 2 this year (plus one show in Japan). Fortunately, I've got tickets to an amazing lineup of shows over the next few months.

Yellowcard, Mae, Over It - April 17 @ San Jose State Event Center Arena

Wasn't initially planning to go to this show, but Andrew was interested in seeing Yellowcard so I decided I'd go. Definitely looking forward to seeing Over It for the first time. And also looking forward to hearing Mae play songs from The Everglow live. They always put on a good show. As for YC, as much as I want to be bitter about them and the whole Ben drama, I know I'm going to get into their set. I'm hoping they play more older stuff than things off Lights and Sounds, but that's probably unlikely.

Dredg - May 11 @ The Fillmore

Nick and I had planned to see these guys back in December, but the show sold out before we got around to getting tickets. Definitely looking forward to seeing them as Catch Without Arms was one of my absolute favorite albums last year. I need to go and listen to some of their older stuff before the show though. Also of note is now that Nick lives in SF, he's going to pick up tickets from the box office, so screw you Ticketmaster, you're not getting any lame ass fees from us.

Matt Nathanson - May 13 @ Swedish American Music Hall

Matt and his guitar for an acoustic solo show!! So psyched for this show. Matt is easily one of the most fun people you will ever see live. Still need to pick up his live album that just came out (if I can ever find it anywhere). Did I mention this show is going to be amazing?

Brand New - July 11 @ The Fillmore

Definitely my most anticipated of all the shows. I've been waiting years to see Brand New live. They'd better play for 2 hours.

Those are my confirmed shows for the next few months. I'm sure more will crop up. In fact two other shows I know about that I may go to are MC Lars/The Matches at the end of May and I hear Radiohead is playing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley in July. I've never seen Radiohead before and I've heard nothing but good things about their live performances. So even though I'm not a huge, huge Radiohead fan, I'll probably still go.

Screaming is for Babies

Went to the Screaming Is For Babies tour tonight featuring: The Starting Line, Copeland, Gatsby's American Dream, Cartel, and New Atlantic. What an amazing line up. Got to Slim's right at 7 and was able to park less than a block away. No line at the Will Call window, and the line to get into the show moved quickly, though I did miss most of New Atlantic's opening song. On with a review of the show:

New Atlantic
AP.net has been posting downloadable demos here the last couple weeks, so that gave me a good idea of what to expect. They played a good set and the crowd as a whole seemed into them. A great way to open the show. I definitely plan to pick up their album when it comes out.

Cartel
I've been totally digging Chroma for about the last month, so needless to say I was stoked to see these guys (and they said this was their first time in SF, so that was neat). I loved the seamless transition from Say Anything (Else) into Honestly. They sounded great live and I ended up picking up their album after the show for a mere $10. I'd say I was disappointed they didn't play Minstrel's Prayer, but I already knew they weren't playing that on this tour. As for the songs they did play (not quite in order:)

• Luckie St
• Runaway
• Say Anything (Else)
• Honestly
• If I Fail
• Burn This City

Gatsby's American Dream
Volcano is another CD that has been in heavy play the last couple months. After reading Mike's and Meri's respective posts on the NYC show, I had some pretty high expectations for Gatsby's live performance. They did not disappoint in the least. The lead singer definitely knows how to handle the stage and get the crowd going. They were all just really fun to watch. The one thing I did notice was how short most of the songs on Volcano are. The album itself is only 33 minutes and most of the songs clock in at under 3. I hadn't really noticed that before because Volcano is one of CDs that you just let play all the way through and the songs transition nicely from one to another. I was hoping they'd play Your Only Escape, but alas they did not. That said, Shhhhhh! I'm Listening to Reason was a great song to end the set with. And now to steal Mike's setlist since it looks about right for what they played tonight:

• Theatre
• Pompeii
• The Loosing Of The Shadow
• (new song #1)
• A Mind of Metal And Wheels
• Recondition, Reprogram, Reactivation
• Fable
• (new song #2)
• Shhhhhh! I'm Listening To Reason

Copeland
Not too much to say about these guys. I was only vaguely familiar with them beforehand. Their set was really low energy. That's not to say the set was bad, it's just a result of the type of songs they play. I think they would have fit in better as the first or second slot. If I had known more of their songs, I definitely would have enjoyed it more.

The Starting Line
I've seen TSL a three times before (twice as openers, once as headliners), but this was without a doubt their best performance ev4r. Loved hearing lots of songs from Based on a True Story live, as well as their classics from Say It Like You Mean It. The crowd definitely had a good time, and was considerably tame. Which made the fact that this over 6' tall security guard would occasionally appear in the middle of the crowd and just stand there for a song or two. So lame, especially considering how tame the crowd was being. My favorite two songs of the night were Photography and Ready. That was the first time I heard Photography live and Wil from Cartel came out and sang with Kenny during Ready. Good stuff. And because naming a song that wasn't played seems to be a running theme, I'll say I was hoping to hear The World because it's got some good crowd chanting parts. Now for some sort of setlist:

• Surprise, Surprise
• Inspired By The $
• Up and Go
• Leaving
• Bedroom Talk
• Artistic License
• Ready
• Photography
• A Goodnight's Sleep
• Decisions, Decisions
• This Ride
• Best of Me
• New Song
• Cheek to Cheek
• And I think I'm missing 1 or 2

This was a great show and one of the best line ups of bands I've ever seen.

Spring Tours

Lots of awesome spring tours were announced this week (Thanks to AP.net for the info).

First up is The Starting Line, Gatsby's American Dream, Copeland, and Cartel at Slim's on March 23rd. Hot stuff. I always enjoy TSL and I'm pretty familiar with all the openers but haven't gotten to see any of them live yet.

Then we've got the Take Action Tour featuring Matchbook Romance, Silverstein, The Early November, and Amber Pacific at an as of yet unknown venue on March 29th. I'll mainly be going to see The Early November. I enjoyed Amber Pacific's recent album, so it'll be cool to see them as well.

And saving my most anticipated tour for last: Motion City Soundtrack with OK Go, Plain White T's and The Spill Canvas on the first half of the tour and The Format, The Matches, and Men Women and Childen on the second half. Tour dates aren't announced until Monday, so I'm not sure which bands will be supporting in SF. My guess is SF will be hit on the second half of the tour since I know The Format and The Matches are the west coast bands. I'm dying to see The Format again but at the same time it'd be awesome to see OK Go and The Spill Canvas, so I'll be happy either way.

If you're interested in hitting any of these shows with me, let me know.

Death Cab for Cutie and Stars

On Monday I went to see Death Cab for Cutie and Stars at The Warfield. Stars is an indie band from Canada and I've been listening to them at work pretty frequently the last couple weeks. Their music is mostly soft and melodic and with great lyrics. I enjoyed their live set and they played a few of my favorite songs including Elevator Love Letter, Your Ex Lover is Dead, and What I'm Trying to Say. The only downside of their set was the incredibly annoying group of 15 year olds standing near us. They were clearly OC watching Death Cab "fans" and spent the entire Stars set carrying on loud conversations. And of course the girls screamed their ear piercing screams after each Stars song even though they were paying absolutely no attention. Someone behind me asked them once to be quiet, but that lasted all of half a song. I still don't know why they even bothered being down in the pit for Stars if they weren't going to bother listening to them. Sigh. Fortunately after the Stars set they thankfully pushed their way more towards the front and away from us.

Death Cab played an excellent set which consisted of lots of songs from Plans, a few from Transatlanticism, and topped off with a nice selection of older songs. My favorite part of the show was What Sarah Said directly followed by Brothers on a Hotel Bed. I honestly wasn't expecting them to play What Sarah Said, so that was exciting. Death Cab is one of my favorite bands, and it was really great to see them again.

The set list:

• Marching Bands of Manhatten
• We Laugh Indoors
• New Year
• Title and Registration
• Photobooth
• Soul Meets Body
• Summer Skin
• Movie Script Ending
• Crooked Teeth
• Different Names
• Amputations
• Company Calls
• Company Calls Epilogue
• What Sarah Said
• Brothers on a Hotel Bed
• Hindsight
• Sound of Settling

------- (encore)----------

• Into the Dark
• Title Track
• Prove My Hypothesis

Matt Nathanson

Friday night I went up to the Great American Music Hall with my co-worker Jake, his roomate Rus, and Nick to see the always entertaining Matt Nathanson. I last saw Matt a little over a year go when he opened for O.A.R in Berkeley and I really enjoyed his live show, so I was quite excited to be seeing him again. Before the show started, I picked up a T-shirt to add to my ever growing band shirt collection as well as two of Matt's CDs Still Waiting for Spring (which has penguins on the cover so it is inherently good) and Ernst. The songs on Still Waiting for Spring lean more towards the poppy side of the spectrum while Ernst is mostly just Matt and his acoustic guitar and contains arguably his best song ever, Maid. I really enjoy both albums a lot. I also picked up a free bookmark which is advertising his live acoustic solo album that is coming out in January. Can't wait for that.

Before I get to Matt's set I'll quickly cover the openers, Kate Earl and Matt Wertz. Kate only played 3 or 4 songs, I'm guessing because she was sick. The songs she played (mainly her and a piano, with an upright bass on one of them) were o.k., but I didn't really get into them. Matt Wertz played for 45 minutes, and seemed to really enjoy himself. His songs were of the standard love song variety, with a Michael Jackson medley (including Bad) thrown in there and his singing was quite over the top. It was hard not to smile since he was having a good time, but I felt like his set did drag on a bit longer than I would have liked.

Finally Matt was up and he opened with a new song, saying "this is a little bit like we're in a new sexual relation ship and I'm sticking a finger up your ass, this is either going to quickly end the relationship or it's going to be amazing". The song was definitely a lot more rock than his other stuff, but I really liked it. He played another new song later in the set that was more similar to this first song than his other stuff.

After playing 10 or so songs with the full band, he played a couple solo acoustic songs. Then the band came back out for another 5 or so songs. After the "last" song, Matt came back out and did a truly acoustic (didn't even sing into the mic) version of Suspended, which I absolutely loved. It sounded great with the crowd singing "Sunshine" and then Matt harmonizing in the background.

The other big sing along moment in his set is the ending of Answering Machine; "I can fall alone, if all, if I can fall away". Another highlight of the show was the impromptu full cover of Journey's Any Way You Want It. He was totally ready to play another song and people were calling out random songs and he says "oh no, did someone just say Journey?!" He pauses then goes and grabs his electric guitar and talks to each of his bandmates to see if they know the chords, then they jump right into Any Way You Want It. It was fantastic. Later in the show people were calling out other band names/songs and Matt laughingly says "I feel so good when everyone is yelling out songs that aren't mine. How about you just kick me in the balls with some steel toed boots?"

Another entertaining moment was when he was getting ready for the acoustic portion of the show, this girl in the front pulled out a bull horn. Matt then explained how this same girl had come up to him after the previous night's show and been all upset that he didn't play the song she wanted. And he was like, "yeah whatever, just call it out next time maybe I'll play it". So Matt took the bullhorn from her and had some fun talking into it. It was great fun.

Matt puts on the most entertaining and fun live show I have ever been to and interacts with the crowd better than anyone I've ever seen. And it's great because you can just tell how much fun he is having, and seeing that is just infectous. I don't see how you could have a bad time at a Matt show, so I highly recommend you go see him the next time he's out on tour near you

I also think it's so awesome that he's on a very small independent label and able to do full cross country tours and sell places out mainly through self promotion. From everything I've heard he's an extremely hard working musician, so I'm really happy to see him being so successful. Matt's also a long time volunteer for the Bread and Roses charity, a group that gets groups to perform for institutionalized people, which I think is a great idea. He invited them to the show to have a table set up to raise awareness of what they do and how to get involved.

So yes Matt Nathanson rocks all around. If you want to hear some of his stuff, let me know and I can hook you up. Also you can read about his amusing closet obsession with the new Coldplay album in his journal.

Nintendo Fusion Tour

Last night I went to the Nintendo Fusion Tour at the Warfield and saw an excellent lineup of bands: Panic! At the Disco, Boys Night Out, Motion City Soundtrack, The Starting Line, and Fall Out Boy.

The show started at 7 and I left Cupertino around 5:30, unfortunately due to really bad rush hour traffic I didn't end up getting to the show until about 7:15. Suck. I was really looking forward to Panic!'s set so I was quite disappointed that I only got to hear the last song of their set. On the bright side that song was Time to Dance, which is my favorite of their songs and of course the "I say shotgun, you say wedding. Shotgun! Wedding!" part was full of crowd participation.

Next up was Boys Night Out, who I was only vaguely familiar with. They are a pretty scream heavy band, so not being familiar with any of their songs it was hard to pick up many of the lyrics. I did enjoy Medicating which is the one song of theirs I had heard before.

Then came the band I was most looking forward to seeing, Motion City Soundtrack. They played a really energetic, fun set and it was much longer than Panic's or Boy's Night Out's set. The best part of a live MCS show is definitely the keyboardist. That guy knows how to rock out (for instance doing hand stands on his keyboard). They of course played the singles The Future Freaks Me Out and My Favorite Accident from their first album. I was also really excited when they played Capital H. The one song I would have liked to hear and didn't was Autographs and Apologies, though that is a much slower song and really wouldn't have fit with their set. Fortunately early next year they are going on a headlining tour with OK Go and The Spill Canvas in support, so there's a good chance I'll get to hear it then. A quick listing of the songs I can remember they played (in no particular order):

• Better Open the Door
• The Future Freaks Me Out
• Attractive Today
• Everything is Alright
• When You're Around
• Hangman
• Boombox Generation
• Capital H
• My Favorite Accident

Then it was time for The Starting Line. I was really looking forward to hearing the new stuff from Based on a True Story. Sadly the 15 year old girl crowd could not possibly appreciate that album, so things were pretty calm during their set, except of course for Leaving and Best of Me. Kenny even said something at one point like "We hope you buy our album. And we hope one day you'll love our album. But right now we just hope you know the words so you can sing along." I did enjoy their set but I'd love to see them again with a bit of an older crowd that's into their new album and I really want to hear them play Photography live. And with that the approximate set list:

• Surprise, Surprise
• Best of Me
• Bedroom Talk
• Given the Chance
• Ready
• Autography
• Leaving
• (There were several more, but I can't remember what)

And last but not least was Fall Out Boy. Let me just say they put on an awesome live show. Its only a matter of seconds from the time they take the stage until you are completely drawn into their music. The biggest problem with a Fall Out Boy set is they don't have any slow songs, so you've got to have good stamina to make it through a whole set without collapsing (especially when you've already been rocking out to 4 other bands). They opened with Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued and as they did tons of confetti was released from the ceiling. Fun stuff. They played a fine mix of new and old songs, including the song Moving Pictures which is pre Take This To Your Grave. The one song I was surprised they didn't play was Dead On Arrival, since that was a staple from the Take This To Your Grave days.

I know their are a lot of FOB haters now that they have gotten big and hit the MTV scene, but I for one am happy for them. Sure I miss the small shows I saw them at in Cleveland, but they've worked incredibly hard to get where they are so they deserved every bit of success.

And lastly the songs I remember they played:

• Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued
• Sugar We're Going Down
• Dance, Dance
• Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner
• Of All The Gin Joints In The World
• Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year
• A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
• XO
• Tell That Mick He Just Made My List Of Things To Do Today
• Grand Theft Autumn
• Saturday
• Homesick At Space Camp
• Chicago is So Two Years Ago
• Moving Pictures

American Analog Set

Last night Nick and I went to see The American Analog Set at Bottom of the Hill. I hadn't even heard of them until about a week ago when Nick told me he had tickets to the show. He hooked me up with some mp3s, and I liked what I heard so I said I'd join him for the show.

Nick and I met up with his friends Doug and Zach at the show. We were there about an hour before the show started, so we talked for a while and checked out the merch table. I decided to buy their 2001 album, Know By Heart, since I had already listened to it 3 or 4 times in the week I had the mp3s from Nick and it contains my favorite song by them, The Postman.

The first band of the night was a fun local band called Scrabbel. Their music wasn't anything mind blowing, but it wasn't at all bad either. I quite enjoyed the cello and maracca that looked like an orange. Being the night before Halloween, the band members were dressed in various costumes and you could tell they were having a really fun time playing.

The next band was a local all female group, Vervein. They also had a cellist and played an enjoyable, fairly mellow set. The main thing I remember from their set is the singer dedicating a song to "the guy wearing a leotard, that takes balls...and we can all see them."

And finally we were treated to The American Analog Set. I was quite happy when they played The Postman for their second song. Partway through the set, someone called out for Punk As Fuck, which is another of my favorite songs. Sadly they said they said that song was for the previous night's show. However, the person that requested it said back that they would have been there last night, but he the show was a 21 and over only show, so Andrew said something like they'd think about it. A little while later Nick called out for Aaron and Maria and Andrew laughed and jokingly replied, "I love how you said that with so much hope when you knew the answer was going to be no. It was like you were saying, can I have $20?" The band gave a shout out to Elise of Indie Pop Rocks who was at the show, which I thought was cool. After they had finished their set and left the stage everyone was still clapping, so they came back on and played Punk As Fuck for the encore!

This was most certainly the most mellow show I've been to, but I greatly enjoyed it and Know by Heart is going to be getting some heavy play in iTunes for a good long while.

Download Festival

Yesterday I went to the Download Festival with Mike and his friends Katie and Jason. I wasn't originally planning to go to this show because the main band I was interested in was the Arcade Fire, and seeing them at such a large venue couldn't possibly live up to seeing them at The Grand Ballroom in San Francisco.

However when I went to see Bloc Party with Mike the other week, he said he had 4 tickets to the Download Festival, and they were really good seats (about 10 rows back in the center section) so I decided I might as well go.

Jason and I got there just before Mindless Self Indulgence's set. We watched a few of their songs, including Bitches Love Me (which was the only song of theirs I knew thanks to a hilarious fan made music video involving Pikachu). Then we decided to wander around the venue for a while just to see what there was and see if we could find MIke. I was also trying to figure out where and when Extra Action Marching Band (they are a marching band but dress in gothy and other interesting attire)would be playing. Buzz had mentioned them a few times and said they are really something to see. After 30 minutes or so of wandering and no sign of a large marching band (the ticket takers didn't have any idea where and when they were playing either) we went back to the stage where Mindless Self Indulgence were finishing up their set.

Then as they were setting up the stage for HIM, Extra Action Marching Band come out from behind the stage and started doing their thing in the middle of the crowd. They played a couple songs before marching off to other areas of the show. Then I went over to check in on Jason who had entered some kind of video game tournament in the GameTap. Then we listened to two HIM songs before being bored and heading over to the main stage.

Mike and Katie were already there and British Sea Power were just taking the stage. British Sea Power was ok, but nothing too exciting. Next up were the Doves. I have one of their songs, Pounding, which they opened with. The rest of their set was pretty enjoyable as well, but would have been better if I knew more of their songs.

Then came the main reason I went to the show, The Arcade Fire. They played most of Funeral, as well as the song No Cars Go, and a couple new songs. It was a great set as expected, and during Laika when the two band members get into a fight they came off the stage and were fighting in the aisle right in front of us. They ended with Power Out and a long jam session and then Extra Action Marching band came onto the stage to join them. That was quite a site. Extra Action played a couple songs before proceeding up to the general admission area where they played for quite a while.

Finally about 30 minutes later we thought Modest Mouse was about to take the stage, but instead we had to sit through a painfully pathetic DJ performance by these two girls from GameTap who apparently had no idea what they were doing. The transitions between songs were non existent and they weren't even using headphones. It was total amateur hour. Eventually the intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit came on, which was cool, until they put Beastie Boys lyrics on top of it. Finally someone cut the speakers and everyone cheered. Of course they were still on stage attempting to DJ. It was really awful.

Finally Modest Mouse came out. I enjoyed their songs (though they didn't play Ocean Breathes Salty), but they didn't have very good crowd interaction. I think they addressed the crowd twice at most. But their songs was good, so it was all good.

After another half hour or so wait, The Killers took the stage. I really only know two of their songs, Somebody Told Me and Mr. Brightside. That also seemed to be the case for a large majority of the crowd as well. Some of their songs have pretty good beats, but it wasn't the normal sing-a-long fest you would expect for the headliner. We were also highly amused when the lead singer said, "We only have 4 shows left before we are going to start working on our new album, so we're going to do something we don't normally do and play everything we've got". Normally that'd be a fine statement, but when you only have one album, it lacks a certain punch.

All in all though it was a good day out with good music.

Impromptu Concert

My friend Mike called me at this afternoon and said he had an extra ticket to the Bloc Party show tonight. I've been listening to their CD off an on at work the last few months. It never made it into heavy rotation, but it is a good CD, so I took him up on the offer.

We left work around 6 and headed up to The City. We parked at the Metreon where we met another of Mike's friends and then grabbed some food before heading to The Warfield. The first band was The Noisettes, and they sounded much as their name implies. They were pretty good for an opening band. The drummer was pretty crazy with a full head of curly hair and fully beard. He totally looked like Animal from the muppets. The lead singer, this black British chick that could kick your ass had some pretty over the top dance moves.

The next band was a duo (male guitarist, female singer/bass player) called The Kills. The singer had the whole goth look going with long black hair, pale skin, black pants, black and white striped shirt. The music was similarly dark/industrial. They were alright, but not really my thing. The worst part about their set were these two big guys in front of us, who apparently thought this was the greatest band of all time. They were jumping and flailing around and being generally obnoxious to everyone around them. Fortunately they left after The Kills set. On their way out they said they were yelling to no one in particular, "thank you, Bloc Party sucks, up next shitty corporate rock". Uhh, Bloc Party hardly counts as corporate rock. But whatever, we were just glad they were gone.

Finally Bloc Party was up. They played a good set. The two crowd favorites where Banquet and Like Eating Glass. They played a handful of new songs, but for the most part the new songs didn't have that good dance beat a lot of their other songs have. Towards the end of the set (pre-encore) someone crowd surfed to the stage and then jumped back into the crowd. Apparently some young girl got kicked in the face when he did this, and the band stopped playing and got her up on stage and she went off with on of the stagehands. Then they of course scolded the guy that did it. When they came back for the first encore they said the girl was fine, which is good. Unfortunately, the show never got to the same energy level it had before the crowd surfing incident.

Overall the show wasn't anything super spectacular, but it was definitely a fun time and worth the $20.

Rockvember

November is shaping up to be the single best concert month, ever. I've already got 4 shows scheduled: Nintendo Fusion Tour with Fall Out Boy, The Starting Line, and Motion City Soundtrack (which I blogged about here) the recently mentioned Video Games Live show, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Drive Thru Records Tour with Allister and Fenix*TX.

Death Cab for Cutie is touring in support of their brand new album, Plans. I can't wait to hear the new stuff live.

The Allister and Fenix*TX show should be lots of fun. I've seen Allister quite a few times before and they always put on an excellent show. They have a new album coming out in October, which is their followup to 2002's Last Stop Suburbia. They actually played a few new songs when I saw them in May 2004 at the Grog Shop in Cleveland and they sounded pretty good. Needless to say I'm anxious to hear the new album. Fenix*TX actually broke up a couple years ago, but they are getting back together for a farewell tour. Mike first introduced me to them during our freshman year of college. It will be cool to finally get to see them live.

Video Games Live

I found out about the Video Games Live concert in one of my weekly concert emails. I'm ordering tickets tomorrow for the San Jose show on Saturday November 5th. It looks like it's going to be a really cool show. If anyone else wants me to order them a ticket, let me know.

The Decemberists

After a nearly three month stint without going to any concerts, I finally made it to a show last Sunday and caught The Decemberists at The Fillmore.

Nick introduced me to The Decemberists a few months ago when he put On the Bus Mall up as a Song of the Week. They use a good number of instruments in their music including a violin, accordian, piano, and upright bass which makes for a fairly unique sound. Even though Nick had been pimping them several months ago, it was only within the few weeks that I started listening to them with any frequency. Fortunately, this was just in time that I was still able to grab a ticket before the show sold out (They actually played both Sunday and Monday and both shows sold out!). And boy am I glad I went as they put on an excellent show.

I found out on Friday that Buzz was also going to the show and he invited me to meet him and some of his friends at Pizza Inferno to grab some dinner before the show. We planned to meet at 6:30, so I left Cupertino just before 5:30 and got to the edge of The City just after 6. Unfortunately, there was apparently a Giants game that night which I was unaware of, so the last 3 miles of 101 before I got into the city itself took me just over an hour to get through. Ugh. After getting through that mess, I got to the fillmore area shortly after 7. Thankfully, there was a cheap parking garage nearby since I didn't see any street parking on my quick pass around the area. I finally made it to the restaurant and got some pizza shortly after 7:15. Buzz and friends were kind enough to wait while I ate my food and then we headed over to the venue and got there just as the opening band was started playing.

The first band was Sons and Daughters from Glasgow, Scotland. They're a four piece band (2 male, 2 female) with guitarist Scott and gutiarist/pianist Adele sharing vocal duties. I quite enjoyed their set. Their songs had excellent driving basslines and catchy choruses (Check them out on iTunes). They also broke out a mandolin for at least one song. I definitely plan to listen to more of their stuff.

Next up was Petra Haden and The Sellouts, an all female (10 singers total) group that did a cappella versions of songs from The Who Sellout. Sound crazy? It was, but it actually worked pretty well. I wasn't terribly familiar with the original album, but I definitely enjoyed their set. Our Love Was and Tattoo were my favorite songs they sang.

Petra also happens to be the violinist (and backup vocalist) for the headliners, The Decemberists. They took the stage to some pretty spiffy intro music and then immediately broke into 16 Military Wives. They had good energy all night and played a nice long set. The craziest part of the set was the jam session that occurred during the encore. They broke into a jam and then Colin (lead singer/guitarist) pulled this lady out of the crowd and gave her his guitar. She didn't seem to know how to play, but that didn't stop her from jumping around and strumming like mad. The bass player similarly brought up a young guy to take over bass duty. Over the next few minutes all the band members switched up instruments. The best switch was the bass player taking over for the drummer without a missed beat.

Songs I can remember they played:

• 16 Military Wives
• Odalisque
• Grace Cathedral Hall
• The Legionnaire's Lament
• Billy Liar
• The Chimbley Sweep
• We Both Go Down Together
• Eli, The Barrow Boy
• The Sporting Life

It was a great show, all three bands played excellent sets and was definitely worth the trip despite the whole getting stuck in traffic suckage.

Other notes from the evening:
Peter and the Wolf was played during one of the intermissions. Cool!

The Fillmore is a great place to see a show, because they often give out free posters after shows, so I now have a spiffy Decemberists poster to hang in my office.

I highly recommend you check out The Decemberists on iTunes.

It seems like as I was watching the show there were more things I wanted to be sure and mention in this blog post, but I can't remember what they are now. Oh well.

Nintendo Fusion Tour

Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack, and The Starting Line @ The Warfield Thursday November 3rd. Can't wait! All three bands have just released great sophomore albums and all put on an excellent live show. This could very well rival the first show I ever went to(NFG, Something Corporate, Finch, and Further Seems Forever) as the most fun lineup of bands I've seen at a single show.

BFD 2005

On Friday Nick and I went to Live 105's BFD concert at the Shorline Amphitheater in Mountain View. Unfortunately, due to some stuff I needed to do at work I missed two bands I really wanted to see MxPx and to a lesser extent Senses Fail. I got to the show around 4:30 and made it to the stage just in time to catch Alkaline Trio's set. This was the first time I've seen them live, and they played a good set. A couple older songs, some songs from Good Mourning, and a couple from their album which just came out, Crimson. They ended with Time to Waste which is one of my favorite songs from Crimson.

The next band on that stage was Hot Hot Heat who I had actually heard at BFD two years ago when I was out here as an Intern at Apple. They sounded pretty good, I should check out some of their stuff in the future. After that Nick and I made our way over to the main stage. The first band was The Lovemakers who were introduced as "The greatest local band in the world"....only they weren't. Next up were Kasabian, who were alright but I didn't really get into them.

Then came Jimmy Eat World who was another band I was looking forward to seeing (even though I saw them just a couple weeks ago). They played a lot of songs from Bleed American, as well as a few from Clarity, and a few from Futures (woo "nickel and dimed").

Social Distortion followed them and I actually enjoyed their set. I had heard of them before, but wasn't really familiar with any of their songs. They played some good straight up guitar rock though.

Last up were the headliners, The Foo Fighters. They also headlined when I was at BFD two years ago, but I had ridden my bike and had to leave before they played. We stayed for a little over half of their set and then decided to leave lest we get stuck in the sure to be insane traffic jam. Though we should have waited for two more songs, because as we were walking in the parking lot, we could hear them playing Everlong which is one of my favorite songs by them.

All in all, it wasn't the strongest lineup of bands from my point of view, but for $12 it was definitely worth it. It was nice getting to spend time outside and hear to some good music.

All Good Things Have Endings

The Get Up Kids kicked off their final tour in San Francisco on Thursday and you'd better believe I was there. Mike sent me some of The Get Up Kids' mp3s ("Mass Pike" and "Action and Action" were my immediate favorites) back in high school and I was immediately hooked. Very soon after that I picked up the Red Letter Day EP and Something to Write Home About. They got me started with the whole punk/emo/indie scene and I have discovered so many bands since then. But TGUK remains a personal favorite and they will always be the band that started it all for me. So it is a bit unfortunate that the first time I get to see them will also be the last. But alas, on with the show!

Eric and I made it to San Francisco about 7 and stopped at the Subway right by The Fillmore for a quick bite to eat. By the time we got to the venue we still had a good 20 minutes before the show started, there weren't a ton of people in the theater part yet, so we got in the Merch line since I knew I wanted to get a shirt. I picked up a black shirt with a picture of a grain of wheat that says "The Get Up Kids" underneath. I also picked up their new Live CD since it was only $10. We got into the theater about a minute before Punchline (from Pittsburgh) came on and were only about 10 people away from the front, so that worked out perfectly.

I've seen Punchline once before, they opened for Allister at the Grog Shop last April (my last show in Cleveland). So I was familiar with a few of their songs and looking forward to seeing them. Unfortunately, only a handful of other people were familiar with them. Nonetheless they put on a good show and were able to get the crowd to sing along with a few songs and started a chant "The Get Up Kids are the greatest band in the world!" I definitely enjoyed their set and hope to see them on some more tours.

Next up was Say Anything, who I was also looking forward to seeing. They had opened for Straylight Run at the Bottom of the Hill. Fortunately at this show quite a few people were familiar with them so there was lots of singing along. They played a good number of songs including (in no particular order):

Belt
Woe
Yellow Cat/ Red Cat
Spidersong
Slowly Through the Vector
Alive With The Glory of Love

Next up were The Get Up Kids (after what has to be the longest time between sets EVER: pushing 40 minutes). After an amusing welcome message made by James behind the stage, they came out and jumped right into Coming Clean and everyone went crazy jumping and singing. It was great. By the end of the show I had made my way 2 or 3 people from the front.

Their set was pretty much everything I hoped it would be. Lots of songs, lots from Something to Write Home About, and heck they even played their cover of Close to Me. I was really surprised by the double encore. After the main set was over, it was obvious they'd be coming back for an encore. Then when they ended the encore with I'll Catch You, I figured that was the end of the show. But when the lights didn't come on after they had left the stage, you'd knew they'd be back for at least one more song and even better than that they came back for three more. It was great that they ended with a fast, upbeat song like 10 Minutes. So with that I say so long to The Get Up Kids. You've been an amazingly influential band to all your fans and to lots of other bands. Thanks for 10 years of outstanding music.

Set List
(First three songs, and the encores are in the correct order)

Coming Clean
Holiday
Action and Action

The One You Want
Woodson
Martyr Me
Mass Pike
Campfire Kansas
Red Letter Day
No Love
Don't Hate Me
Never Be Alone
I'm a Loner Dottie, A Rebel
At Least 2 or 3 more

Encore 1
Close to Me
Beer for Breakfast
I'll Catch You

Encore 2
Shorty
Out of Reach
Ten Minutes

Edit: Mike posts his review of The Get Up Kids' show in New Jersey.

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.

I'm a Rocker, I Rock Out

Eric and I went to see Fall Out Boy and Midtown at The Grand in San Francisco last night. The venue was a little bit further from the BART station than I thought, so by the time we grabbed some food, we got to the show about 20 minutes late and missed Gym Class Heroes. I had listened to the songs on their PureVolume page, and discovered they're actually a rap group. I wasn't incredibly excited about seeing them anyway, though it would have been cool to hear the song Taxi Driver the lyrics of which are for the most part composed of band names. The second opening band was The Academy Is. We saw them about a month ago when they opened for Something Corporate. They weren't too bad.

Finally Midtown took the stage. Mike introduced me to Midtown (they're from Rutgers, where Mike went to school) our freshman year of college, and I've been wanting to see them live ever since. They certainly didn't disappoint. They were actually introduced by their guitar tech who pretended to be Napoleon Dynamite. He surprisingly looked and sounded quite a bit like Napoleon, except he had his red hair slicked back. It was pretty entertaining. Then the band came out and Gabe had "EMO SUCKS" written in tape on his sweatshirt. He proceeded to declare emo a fad, but that rock was forever. Then they jumped straight into their set with Give it Up. The rest of their set included:

• To Our Saviors
• A Faulty Foundation
• Is it Me? Is it True?
• Empty Like the Ocean
• Just Rock and Roll
• Hey Baby Don't You Know That We're All Whores
• Waiting for the News
• Nothing is Ever What it Seems

It was good to seem them play a couple older songs in there. They were going to end their set with So Long as We Keep Our Bodies Numb We're Safe, but someone from the venue came out and said something to Gabe and they said, "Oh, I guess we already played our last song". I'm not sure if perhaps things were just running late, or if someone got pissed that one of Midtown's members lit a cigarette on stage (there's no smoking in most California clubs). It was disappointing not to hear one more song, but nonetheless Midtown played an awesome set.

The first song played on the venues speakers while they were getting set up for FOB was the Empty Like an Ocean Mash Up (a mix of Midtown's song and some rap song). I had just recently downloaded the song from here, but it was amusing to actually hear them playing it at a Midtown show. Unfortunately then the rest of the inordinately long time between Midtown's and Fall Out Boy's set was filled with standard rap. Ugh. They could have at least played some MC Lars.

Finally, the lights went out and Baby Got Back was played over the speakers as Fall Out Boy took the stage and opened with Dead On Arrival. Eric and I had been in the back-middle of the pit, but as soon as FOB started playing a whole bunch of people rushed from the back of the crowd. After just a few seconds I ended up 5 or so people from the front of the stage. It had been a long time since I'd been in the pit for a show so I decided I'd stay there for at least a while, and ended up staying the entire set. It was just too much fun rocking out. Though not expecting to be in the pit, I hadn't carefully tied my shoes before the show, so by the end of the first song, My left shoe was completely untied. Fortunately I managed to duck down and get it loosely tied and shove the laces inside my shoe before the second song started. Fall Out Boy shows are always incredibly energetic and this one was no exception. The pit was crazy the entire set, but it was a good time.

As far as I can remember, they played all the songs from Take This to Your Grave as well as 3 songs from their album that comes out in May, and one really old song that I don't remember the name of. The new songs were really good. The electric version of Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner (the song was originally only on their acoustic EP) kicked ass, as did Sugar We're Going Down which I had just heard a couple days before the show. This was my 5th time seeing Fall Out Boy, but the first time they were the headliners. Their shows are always a lot of fun and I had a great time at this one and I can't wait for their album to come out in May.

Update: I forgot this amusing story. After one of The Academy Is's songs, their lead singer told everyone to say hi to one of their stage hands. Then he says "He's single...and straight, so sorry San Francisco".

The Arcade Fire

I went to see The Arcade Fire with Nick, Eric, and Mike last Friday. I first discovered them through Nick's Song of the Week in September and got pretty hooked on No Cars Go. It was only recently that I had started listening to their album, Funeral (which was Pitchfork Media's Album of the Year). The music has an overall dark sound, and sometimes the "noise" and frantic pace draw you in and make you feel trapped like the characters in the songs.

Anyway, onto the show. The first opening act was actually one of the members of Arcade Fire doing a solo violin performance. It was overall pretty good. He had a sequencer that he would use to record various bits of what he was playing and layer them together in real time. Very Howie Day-esque. The second opener was some solo guitar act. I honestly don't think anyone in the audience was listening. You could pretty much just hear the crowd talking during his entire set. Then came The Arcade Fire, eight of them in all (2 guitars, bass, keyboard, drums, 2 violins, misc percussion). They played a pretty long set (I think all of Funeral and a few more songs). Lots of switching up on instruments between songs. I think my favorite song was Neighborhood #2 (Laika), in which 2 of the band members donned motorcycle helmets and proceeded to bang drum sticks on each other's heads and eventually get into a scuffle. The song is about someone's older brother that doesn't seem to get along with his family. The song became deeper and easier to understand once I googled "Laika" and learned that was a dog sent into space by the Russians and they had no intention of bringing it back. The song also contains one of my favorite lyrics: "If you want something don't ask for nothing, if you want nothing, don't ask for something". All in all it was a really fun show.

Make sure you check out their mp3s on Pure Volume.

Piano Rock x2

Straylight Run and Something Corporate @ The Fillmore on February 7. Rock on!

Cigarette

One thing I don't think I've mentioned before is that in California, there isn't any smoking allowed in the clubs, which I think is great. No more smelling like smoke after shows, or ending up standing right next to, or worse, behind, someone that's smoking.

The Perfect Ending

The concert tri-fecta ended on Sunday with Straylight Run at Bottom of the Hill. Andrew joined Nick and I this time around. He hadn't been to a show before, so I lent him their CD and he really liked it. It's funny, when I saw them in Cleveland a bunch of people who didn't go to any other concerts (Angie, Tim, Jeff, and Dave) all came. I guess that just shows that Straylight is good stuff.

There were three openers: Say Anything, Northstar, and Hot Rod Circuit. I just recently started listening to Say Anything, so I enjoyed their set. Their songs and lyrics are just fun to listen to.

I haven't really heard much Northstar or Hot Rod Circuit before the show. Both were decent, but didn't greatly excite me. One interesting note is that Northstar is from Alabama, definitely not the typical pop/punk band home.

Finally Straylight took the stage. They played all the songs on their CD and John and Michelle covered Radiohead's I Will. Every song was great. Apparently no one knew the Radiohead song, because it was quiet for a second after they finished, but Nick being a huge Radiohead fan quickly started the clapping.

I absolutely love Mistakes We Knew We Were Making, and The Tension and The Terror was great live. And they totally rocked out at the end of their last song, Sympathy for the Martyr. Even MIchelle was tearing it up on the keyboard.

There was one amusing moment during the show when someone shouted "John!" in between songs. So John says, "Yes?". "You're the man!" "You're right, I am the man, thanks for pointing that out" Silly John.

After the show I was able to get everyone to sign my liner notes. And I even talked to Michelle a little this time, she was really nice and is such a cutie. :-)

Oh, and if going to this show makes me a jackass, then I'm proud of it!

Why You'd Want to Live Here

On Saturday Nick and I went up to the Warfield for a band I've been waiting a long time to see live, Death Cab for Cutie. I've mentioned them and Ben Gibbard here numerous times before. They were simply fantastic.

And stealing the list of songs they played (not in order) from NIck:

* Pictures In An Exhibition

* Title Track
* Employment Pages
* For What Reason
* Lowell, MA
* Company Calls

* Photobooth

* I Was A Kaleidoscope
* Styrofoam Plates
* A Movie Script Ending
* We Laugh Indoors

* The New Year
* Title And Registration
* Expo ‘86
* The Sound of Settling
* Tiny Vessels
* Transatlanticism

* This Temporary Life

The standout songs for me were Photobooth, Title Track, I Was a Kaleidoscope, A Movie Script Ending, The New Year, Title and Registration, and of course the closing with Tiny Vessels / Transatlanticism.

There's also a slight mishap to tell about this show. When we arrived, we went to the will call booth and Nick gave them his credit card and they said they couldn't find our tickets. So they called Ticketmaster, and apparently Nick had selected the print at home option. Fortunately though they wrote us up tickets. But here's the best part. By the time we found out about the show, only balcony seats were left, but the tickets they wrote up for us were GA tickets! Huzzah! So we ended up dead center of the tier above the pit, right at stage level. It couldn't have been more perfect than that

I also got a really cool DCFC shirt which I'll have to post a picture of at some point.

If you haven't checked out Death Cab yet, you really should. You don't know what you're missing. And if they're in your town, go see them live.

All You Need is Hate

So two weeks ago Nick and I had 3 concerts in the city in a span of just 4 days and now I'm finally getting around to blogging about them.

On Thursday, Nick, Eric, and I went to Bimbo's 365 to see a British band called The Delgados. I hadn't heard of them before, but Nick sent me some mp3s and I liked what I heard so I decided to join him. There were two openenrs. The first was 3 guys from California, can't remember their name, pretty standard rock, nothing exciting. Next up was a guitarist who went by the name Crooked Fingers. Nick had seen him before when he was in London, and promised he was good. And indeed he was. He played at least 4 different guitars throughout his set, the acoustic stuff being the best, in my opinion. He also broke out a harmonica for at least one song. Then the Delgados came up and put on a good show. Easily my favorite song of theirs is a little upbeat number called All You Need Is Hate.

Update:
I forgot to mention that the bouncer lady was convinced the picture on my driver's license wasn't me. She asked me my birthday, zipcode, and I had to get out my college ID, which looked even less like me, and show a credit card. She never really acted like she wouldn't let me in, but she was certain the picture wasn't me. I don't know what the deal was, I've not had a problem before and I showed it to people at work and they were like, "that's pretty much you."

Explosions in the Sky

I went with Nick to see a band called Explosions in the Sky at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on Friday. First I'll say the two opening bands left something to be desired. The first was a guy and a piano. I shouldn't be hard on him though because he said he lost his voice, so he didn't sing anything and instead just played the piano. He played 3 songs, and they sounds pretty simplistic, so I think the singing would have helped. The second band, Lazarus, rather unfortunately did sing. The lead singer really didn't have a good voice, and the lyrics weren't really that exiting. They did do something cool which was have this home video type thing playing behind them on most of their songs. The lead singer was definitely drunk, high, or both and after 3 songs in a row asked "Can I get some more electric guitar in the monitor?" (said in a drunken slur). Then came Explosions in the Sky and it was all worth it. Their music is completely instrumental. You can preview some tracks on iTunes here. The changes in mood throughout any given song were amazing. It would be all slow and then they would go into these fast, crazy guitar riffs. They were really awesome to hear, and if they're ever playing a show in your town you should definitely check them out.

Warm October Night

Last Sunday I went to the Yellowcard show at The Warfield in San Francisco. Yellowcard played, without a doubt, the best set I have ever heard. They played a 20 song, hour and a half set. They played lots of their old songs and quite a few songs they haven't done live before. The setlist was as follows (all the songs are right, but might be a little out of order):

• Piano/Violin Intro (Pete and Sean)
• Inside Out
• October Nights
• Breathing
• Believe
• Powder
• Finish Line
• One Year, Six Months
• Rough Draft
• Trembling
• View From Heaven
• Empty Apartment
• Back Home
• Life of a Salesman
• Only One
• A.W.O.L.
• For Pete's Sake
• Way Away

  Encore

• Rocket
• Gifts and Curses
• Ocean Avenue

I was most excited to hear Gifts and Curses, which is a song they wrote for the Spider-man 2 Soundtrack. It's a great song, and the piano and violin sound really good together. Sean also gave a shout out to his Dad who was at the show, before playing Life of a Salesman.

The opening bands were quite good. The Starting Line played about a 45 minute set right before Yellowcard. It included Best of Me, Up and Go, Cheek to Cheek, Leaving, Left Coast Envy, A Good Night's Sleep, Given the Chance, and about 4 new songs. Good stuff.

The other two openers were Reeve Oliver and The Matches. Reeve Oliver was your typical 3 person punk band. Not bad, but nothing exciting. The Matches had a bit more unique sound and I enjoyed their set. Even better though was after the show was over, The Matches were outside with acoustic guitars rocking out on the sidewalk. It was pretty entertaining.

Hey Cutie, Here's Your Death Cab

While searching on Ticketmaster for tickets to the Taking Back Sunday show next month, I discovered Death Cab for Cutie will be in San Francisco on November 6th. Talked to Nick and he ordered tickets for us. Woot! I missed Death Cab when they were in Cleveland last spring, so I'm excited to actually get to see them. Ben Gibbard is the man when it comes to writing lyrics. Also, the video for Such Great Heights by The Postal Service (Ben's other band) is good stuff. Love in a microprocessor fabrication plant, you betcha!

Tunes in Berkeley

Last Saturday Nick, Mike, Lora, Tristan, and I went to Berkeley to see Matt Nathanson, Howie Day, Guster, and O.A.R at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. I had only heard of Guster and O.A.R before, but it turned out to be an excellent show. A few days before the show I got Matt Nathanson's new CD, Beneath the Fireworks and became completely addicted to it. His music has a peppy beat, the lyrics are meaningful, and he has a great voice. In just over a week, I've listened to the entire album 20 times according to iTunes. And oh yeah, he's incredibly funny during his live show. Here's from the Bay Area and Nick said he plays a lot of shows here so I'm definitely planning to see him again.

Up next was Howie Day. After the standard break between sets he comes onstage, but I'm not expecting him to start playing because there wasn't anyone else on stage with him. I was expecting an entire band with him, like Matt Nathanson had. But no, it was just him, a guitar, and his foot pedal controlled recorders. He would start playing and then use the foot pedals to record and play back guitar parts and vocal parts. It was quite amazing to see and hear. Nick purchased his EP and posted the live version of Bunnies. Download and you can get a sense of the sound, but it's still not the same as watching him doing this right in front of you.

Guster played third and was the band 90% of the crowd was there to see. I was only familiar with a couple of their songs. I did enjoy their set though. Mike didn't like the songs off their new album which were quite a bit slower than their other songs. The best part about watching them was the drummer. He didn't use drum sticks, but instead had white tape around his fingers and played drums, bongos, and cymbals all with his hands. It was pretty crazy how fast he would move, and hitting the cymbals looked like it had to hurt.

The headliners were O.A.R.. None of us were terribly impressed with them. Mike described their music as "Jamaican Island Ska." Everyone was pretty tired, so we started to leave after their second song. But just as we were about to leave the venue, we hear their singer say Matt Nathanson's going to come out and sing a song with them. They played a cover of U2's Sunday, Bloody Sunday and it was great.

After that we left and stopped by a frozen yogurt place on campus. We got huge cups for under $3, easily 2-3 times the amount of Gelato I was used to getting in Cleveland for the same price.

Concert Outlook - Rockin!

There's quite a few excellent shows coming up in the Bay Area in the next couple months that I'm planning to attend. Nick just called to invite me to join him and some other people I know to see O.A.R., Guster, Howie Day, and Matt Nathanson at Berkley in a couple weeks. He also told me the Scissor Sisters will be back in town in September. They have an absolutely great disco cover of Comfortably Numb.

Finch will be in San Francisco on September 10. Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, and Matchbook Romance will be there October 12th. And finally (and perhaps best of all), Yellowcard and The Starting Line are touring together and will be here October 16th. I can't wait!

Bay Area Concerts

I haven't had a chance to look into the concert situation to deeply out here yet, so anyone out there know of any good shows coming up in the Bay Area that I should be checking out? A lot of the bands I want to see are on the Warped Tour right now, but I did see Fall Out Boy is doing a show at Slim's this Thursday. Anyone interested in hitting that show? Leave a comment or send me an email.

YACC (Yet Another Cool Concert)

I found out yesterday that Less Than Jake, The Early November, and Fall Out Boy will be at Peabody's in Cleveland on April 22, just one day after SoCo and Yellowcard. I've been wanting to see Less Than Jake for a while, so I just might need to hit 2 concerts in as many days. I'll have to wait and make sure the Cocoa Programming Competition awards aren't rescheduled for that day though.

Last Stop Suburbia

Allister is going to be at the Grog Shop Saturday May 1 for their Last Stop Suburbia Tour. Huzzah! Hopefully I can get them to sign my ALLISTer R0x0rz t-shirt.

cIP

Lynn's a cappella had their first concert of the Spring semester on Thursday during the Thwing Atrium hour. I got out of Lego Lab a little bit early, which was good since I got there just a couple minutes before they started singing. I was talking to one of my Lego Lab partners, Bryan Munch, who is in another a capella group, Speakeasy, and he decided to come and watch also. The concert itself was very good. My favorite songs were: the opener (What Went Wrong by Blink-182), Keep Me a Secret by Ainslie
Henderson (Lynn arranged that song), The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and You Do (a song from a Family Guy episode). I'm definitely looking forward to their next concert on April 16th at 7 in the Rough Rider Room.

What's the Dillio?

On Wednesday last week Lynn, Dana, and I went to see Mest, Fall Out Boy, Matchbook Romance, and Dynamite Boy at The Odeon. This was my first time at The Odeon and this was Lynn's first "punk" concert. Too quote Mike when I told him that on AIM: "How cute :D". We got to The Odeon around 6:00 and there was already a pretty long line outside. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30, but we didn't actually get in until 6:45 or a little later. Overall I'd say The Odeon is about the same size as The Agora Theater, and there were probably a good couple hundred people at the show. We started out pretty much in the center of the stage, and fairly close to the front, unfortunately though a circle pit opened up right next to us during Dynamite Boy's set, so we ended up moving to the right side of the stage and a little further back. All the bands put on a good show, though I was mainly there to see Fall Out Boy and Mest. Matchbook Romance was good, but I hadn't heard many of there songs and it's always more enjoyable when you know the words and can sing along. I was really glad they played The Greatest Fall Of All Time since that was one of their songs I actually know, and it's a good song. Fall Out Boy put on a good set as always. They're a really fun band to see live. Mest was also really good. They opened with Until I Met You, which I guessed they would since they opened with that at the Good Charlotte show, and it's its the first track on their new album. I really like the song and it does make a great opener since its fast and catchy. My other favorite songs they did were Hotel Room, Drawing Board, and the closer Cadillac ("Jump! Jump!"). The only disappointment was they didn't play What's the Dillio?. I had a good time, and Lynn said she also enjoyed it. The last concert I had been too was in October, so it was nice to get to a concert again, and I'm looking forward to a bunch of upcoming concerts.

Rocking the Grog Shop

Apparently I never wrote about the Fall Out Boy, Mae, Motion City Soundtrack, Rufio show at the Grog Shop 2 weeks ago. Dana and I got to Coventry around 6:30 since both our tickets and the Grog Shop website said the show started at 7. However, when we got there, the people at the Grog Shop said the doors didn't open until 7, so we wandered around Coventry for a bit. Almost everything was closed though, even Big Fun. Then around 7 we went back and got in the Grog Shop. We looked at the merchandise stands for a bit. I really wanted to get a Fall Out Boy shirt, but I didn't really like any of the ones they had. Then we went and got right up in the front row and then we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally at 8 o'clock Fall Out Boy took the stage.

This was the third time I've seen Fall Out Boy, and they get more fun each time. They played just about every song off their album Take This To Your Grave and they played a new song. Seeing the crowd, you would have thought Fall Out Boy was the headliner. The highlight of their set, was at the end when Pete climbed up the wall and across various bars and pipes on the ceiling and hung upside down singing the chorus to their final song. They said they would be back in December with Less Than Jake, so I'm looking forward to that.

Mae played next and also put on a good set. Their music is not nearly as rocky as Fall Out Boy's, but it was really nice to listen to. The keyboard player had 3 different 3 keyboards that he played. I'm glad I got to see them live, and it's made me want to listen to their CD some more.

Motion City Soundtrack played third and were excellent as well. Their keyboard player had an Apple logo sticker on his keyboard. They played most of their songs off of I Am The Movie, including my personal favorite The Future Freaks Me Out.

After Motion City Soundtrack played, Dana and I went over to the merchandise area again. I was able to get everyone in Motion City Soundtrack to sign my CD cover from their CD that I bought over the summer. And I found all but one member of Fall Out Boy and got them to sign the baseball card I had which came with their CD.

After that Dana and I got some seats by the bar and sat and watched game 6 of the Cubs-Marlins series with the drummer from Fall Out Boy which was fun.

Apple Retail Stores and Live Music

I've been checking the Apple Retail page for news about the Cleveland Apple Store opening and though I haven't found anything about that, I have seen something called Music Nights. On October 15th, Thrice will be playing at the store in Santa Monica, CA and Thursday will be playing at the SoHo store. Very, very cool. I've bought both of the bands' recent albums from the iTunes Music Store. I'm hoping they release some live recordings from their performance on the ITMS, like Less Than Jake did a month or so ago. I'm also hoping the Cleveland store has some bands playing at it after it opens. Cleveland does have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after all.

Drive-Thru Invasion Tour

Dana, Kurt, Sarah, and I went to the Drive-Thru Invasion Tour at the Agora Theater last night. It was a really fun time. The line up was The Early November, Senses Fail, Allister, Homegrown, and The Starting Line.

The Early November is a really good live band. They said they'd be doing a headlining tour soon, so I'll probably go see them when they come back. Their new album, The Room's Too Cold, comes out on Tuesday. I already preordered it, because by doing so you get a DVD and a poster. It shipped last Thursday, so it should be here Monday or Tuesday.

Senes Fail was also really good, though the mosh pit got really crazy during their set. Sarah left partway through because some guy tying his shoes bit her leg. Dana and I ended up going to the back of the pit shortly after that because there was too much crowd surfing and neither of us really wanted to have our glasses knocked off.

Allister played next and put on an excellent performance as always. Unfortunately, all the bands played pretty short sets (6 or 7 songs) so it wasn't as good as when they played after Finch last year, or during their headlining show. After Allister played apparently Sarah and Kurt went out to the merchandise stand and Scottie (the lead singer/bass player of Allister) was there. Sarah had Scottie call my cell phone from her phone, but I was inside the theater, so I didn't hear it ring :( . I'm still mad I missed out on meeting Scottie, especially because I had my Last Stop Suburbia CD cover and a Sharpie with me.

Homegrown played after Allister. They were decent, though I only knew a couple of their songs, so their set wasn't as fun as the others.

The Starting Line were the headliners for the tour. This was the first time I've seen them live, and they were great. They played a bunch of songs off of Say It Like You Mean It, as well as a couple new songs that will be on their upcoming album. They also played Make Yourself At Home off of their acoustic EP which will be out November 25. I can't wait for that to be released, it's going to be really good. They also did one of the better encore's I've seen. They played their "last song" The Best of Me, which is their most well known single. A lot of bands pretend they are done before playing their most well known song, so you know they're coming back. There were a few chants of "TSL, TSL, TSL" and "One more song, One more song" but the lights had come on and people started to leave, so it didn't seem like they'd be coming back out. But after a couple more minutes they came back on stage to do their cover of Jennifer Lopez's song, I'm Real. Before they played that, Kenny (the lead singer) was trying to get the guys in the crowd to sing to some Justin Timberlake song, but it wasn't going so well, since no one really knew the song.

All in all, another very enjoyable concert.

The Young and the Hopeless

Dana and I went to see Mest, Something Corporate and Good Charlotte at the Tower City Amphitheater. I've been listening to Mest for a while, but this was the first time I saw them in concert. I was hoping they would play "What's the Dillio?", but they didn't. They played a bunch of songs from their new self-titled album, and Joel or Benji came out on stage when they played Jaded. They also played Fuct Up Kid, Drawing Board, Hotel Room and ended with Cadillac.

Something Corporate played next, and put on a spectacular show as always. They played 3 songs (Only Ashes, Me and the Moon, and Space) from their upcoming album, North. They also played their standard set of songs including Punk Rock Princess, Hurricane, Fall, and If U C Jordan. The best part of their set was about halfway through when Andrew said, "Ok this next song is kind of long." This was the second time I've heard Konstantine live, and it sounded even better this time. Halfway through the song, Andrew climbed up on the piano and sat and sang. Konstantine is definitely one of the best relationship songs ever written.

The headliners of the show were Good Charlotte. They played a good mix of songs from their self titled album and their newer album, The Young and the Hopeless. You could tell most of the crowd had only heard The Young and the Hopeless, because when they played older songs, the amount of people singing along dropped noticeably. Before playing their last song, Benji said "Ok, this is the part of the show known as an encore, where the band usually acts like they are leaving. So pretend we just played our last song." What followed was a very odd mixture of boos and cheers. Benji stood there for a minute and then said, "No, you're supposed to chant something like 'We want more!'". It was pretty amusing.

One other interesting thing that happened towards the end of Good Charlotte's set is they had some random guy from the crowd come up on stage and play drums with them. Benji said it worked a lot better when Green Day did it, but the guy that got up on stage actually seemed to do pretty well.

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.

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.

Concerts

I finally got around to creating my concerts page. It lists the concerts I've been to and links to my blog entries about them as well as upcoming concerts I want to/am planning to attend. Anyone interested in the upcoming concerts I've listed should contact me. Of course feel free to leave comments about upcoming concerts I don't know about yet, and I'll add them to the list. I especially want to see Brand New and Yellowcard, so if they're coming to Cleveland, let me know.

Concerts

First, I'm planning on creating a concerts page to list upcoming concerts I want to go to, as well as bands I want to see in concert. There's a couple concerts in San Francisco this week that are going to be good, but were sold out by the time I found out about them. Tonight is Brand New and Senses Fail at Slim's and on the 17th Midtown and Reggie and the Full Effect are there. I just found out that Midtown and Reggie will be in Cleveland at the Agora on Wednesday Aug 27, which is 2 days after school starts, so I'll definitely be going to that show.

Some dates have been posted for the Drive Thru Records tour in September/October. No Cleveland date has been posted, but hopefully the tour will be stopping there. If not I'll have to try and get to the one in Columbus. The bands on the tour are The Starting Line, Allister (one of the best live bands I've seen), Eary November (another excellent live band), and Senes Fail. I haven't seen TSL or Senses Fail live yet. I have some live videos of Senes Fail and it looks like they put on a kick ass show.

The Warped Tour is in San Francisco tomorrow and a few interns from Apple are heading up there. I'm not going to go, but I am going to see Ben Folds and Tori Amos on the 26th with a few fellow interns.

The last bit of concert info I want to post is Something Corporate will be touring around October/November in support of their new album, North. I can't wait to hear the new album and see them in concert again.

And that's my concert round up. :)

Missed Fiction Plane

I found out today that the band that played during the Apple Campus Bash last night was Fiction Plane. I left around 8 because I rode my bike and wanted to get back before dark, but I would have stayed for a while if I had known Fiction Plane was playing. Oh well.

Live 105 BFD

I went to my first concert here in California last Friday. It was the Live 105 BFD concert. There are pictures of the concert posted here. I got to see a couple bands I've seen before that are really good live (Finch and The Used) and I got to see a few bands I haven't seen live before, but who I've wanted to see (The All American Rejects, The Ataris, The Donnas). They were all really good. Finch played a couple new songs and they will be recording their next album here very soon. Speaking of new music, I'll have to see if the iTunes Music Store has the Brand New CD Deja Entendu tomorrow. If not I may just have to break down and buy Less Than Jake's Anthem.

ALLISTer R0x0rz

Dana, Sarah, and I went to the Allister concert tonight at the Agora Ballroom. I had a great time. The Interns, Fall Out Boy, and Don't Look Down were the opening bands. The Interns played first and were pretty good. They said their EP would be out soon. Fall Out Boy from Chicago played next. They are a great live band. Tonight was their last night on this tour, so on their last song the guys from Allister ran out on stage and wrapped duct tape around all of them and threw a few of them into the crowd. I've enjoyed Fall Out Boy both times I have seen them and I'll probably pick up their album Take This to Your Grave when it comes out in May. Don't Look Down played third was was pretty good. Not much else to say about them. Allister was great as I knew they would be. They played about the same set of songs as when they played after Finch. Sarah got their set list so I'll probably post that later. Unfortunately, they didn't play Fraggle Rock. On their last song Fall Out Boy came out to get revenge with duct tape and shaving creme. We all got a little bit of shaving creme on our faces. Then the members of Fall Out Boy were jumping into the crowd constantly, it was pretty insane. Quite a fun night, there were a few kicks to the head by crowd surfers and getting hit in the head with guitars, but it was worth it.

And in case you didn't know Allister does not spell their name like ALLISTer. Let me explain that. After the concert I was down playing pool and I had a white t-shirt on. There is a broken pool cue and Jacob really wanted to write on my shirt, so I let he and Angie write ALLISTer R0x0rz on the back of it. Jacob didn't start the word Allister over far enough, so the er had to be lowercase so it fit.

Everynight's Another Story

Dana and I went to the Grog Shop to see American Hi-Fi, The Early November, Fall Out Boy, and Trouble Is. This was the first time either of us had been to the Grog Shop. It's a nice little venue and we were within the first 3 rows of people the entire time. All 4 bands were quite good. I had heard at least some songs by all of them except Trouble Is. I'll definitely be looking for some of their mp3s now though. The crowd was pretty tame, there was some crowd surfing during The Early November's set, including band members jumping into the crowd, which is always fun. This was their last show of the tour and the other bands came on stage during their set and toilet papered them which was pretty amusing. American Hi-Fi played a good set, and took requests after they played through their set. All in all it was quite an enjoyable evening.

Concerts

I'm posting this list of concerts that I'd like to go to in the next month or so mainly for my own reference because there are so many of them, but anyone reading this that wants to go to one or more of the shows should let me know. If you haven't heard of the bands, I have mp3s of them.

The Movielife, One Line Drawing, Static Lullaby, Senses Fail (?), Vendetta Red (?)
Agora
Friday March 21
Note: I'm pretty sure Vendetta Red is playing and not Senses Fail, so I'm not too interested in this show anymore.

The Ataris, Juliana Theory, Further Seems Forever
Agora
Wed Mar 26
Note: This is the first date for the Ataris tour, should be an excellent show. I saw Juliana Theory with Something Corporate and they were ok live. I saw Further Seems Forever with New Found Glory and they were really good.

American Hi-Fi, Fall Out Boy, Early November, Trouble Is
Grog Shop
Fri Mar 28
Note: I'm definitely going to this show because I've never been to the Grog Shop. American Hi-Fi should be fun. The Art of Losing is a catchy song and it was played during Malcolm in the Middle last night. I have a few mp3s of Fall Out Boy and they sound pretty good and Early November is decent too. I don't know anything about Trouble Is.

Taking Back Sunday, From Autumn to Ashes, Recover, Somehow Hollow
Agora
Wed April 2
Note: I'd really like to see Taking Back Sunday. Their songs are very strong lyrically and you can feel their emotion just listening to their album, so I'm sure they'll be amazing live.

Ben Folds, Tegan and Sara
Severance Hall
Wed April 16
Note: For $8, I have to go to this. Also Sarah says Tegan and Sara are good.

Allister, Fall Out Boy, Don't Look Down
Agora Ballroom
Thurs April 17
Note: I'm definitely going to this show, the Agora Ballroom is a nice small venue. Sarah and I had a blast when Allister played there after the Finch show a few weeks ago.

New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Less Than Jake
Tower City Amphitheater
Friday April 28
Note: NFG, probably my favorite "punk" band.

Project Mayhem

Last night's concert was a much needed break from the almost non stop work I had every other night this past week. The pit was pretty crazy and definitely the roughest one I've been in yet. At times you were completely squashed and couldn't move at all and other times when you did have room to move everyone around you would just be jumping into you. Sarah and I were only in the pit for My Chemical Romance and Finch. It was all fun though. I'm a little sore today, but I'm still going to play racquetball later this afternoon. The only bad part of the pit was Sarah getting kicked in the neck by a crowd surfer. I think she's doing ok though...she always says she's tough.

My Chemical Romance had a pretty good set. I hadn't heard any of their songs beforehand, but I still enjoyed them. The Movielife played next and they were also quite good. They said they're doing a headlinging tour in a month or so, so I'll probably go see them when they come back.

Much to Sarah's and my surprise, Finch played next. This was Finch's headlining tour so we have no idea why they didn't play last. Our best guess is someone in the band was sick or hurt because they didn't even play that many songs. I'm really surprised they didn't play Letters to You seeing as that is one of their most well known songs. Despite that Finch's set was still incredible. They played a new song Worms of the Earth, which sounded a lot different from all their other songs. It was still good and hopefully I can find a copy of it soon. I don't remember the correct order but I think these are the songs they played:
Untitled
New Beginnings
Post Script
Grey Matter
Perfection Through Silence
Awake
Project Mayhem
Worms of the Earth
What it is to Burn

Next up was The Used. Their set didn't start out too well, but it got pretty good towards the end. Sarah and I stood in the back of the Agora for their set, so we could get out quickly, but there's a good reason for that. :-) Of the songs they played The Taste of Ink was the one I enjoyed the most. Bert (the lead singer) did a standing flip at one point which was pretty cool. He also stage dove into the crowd at one point.

Surprisingly, there was some flashing at the concert. Nate from Finch said "Wow, that is the first time anything like that has ever happened to us." After some girl flashed The Used Bert said, "Ok, that's enough self degradation for tonight."

So why did we want to be able to leave quickly after The Used were done? Because Allister was going to be playing in the Ballroom right after The Used were done! Since the last I read was that Allister had broken up, this was quite a surprise. Apparently they found a replacement guitarist and drummer, and this was the first (maybe second) time they played on this tour.

Sarah and I managed to get all the way up front in the middle of the stage. There's no barrier in the Ballroom, so we were just inches away from Scottie and Tim. The crowd was really tame, no pushing (except for 2 guys at the beginning of the set) or crowd surfing, just lots of jumping and singing. When they played Somewhere Down on Fullerton, Scottie said anyone who knows the words should come up on stage. Sarah and I did manage to make it up. I still don't know how the drums and sound equipment didn't get knocked over. After Allister was done Sarah manged to get their set list from one of the Agora workers. She's already gotten a pick at a concert, so her goal next time is a drumstick. Sarah typed up their set list for me to post, so here it is:

Scratch, Stuck, Overrated, Moper, The One That Got Away, Somewhere on Fullteron, Miz, Don't Think Twice, None of My Friends are Punks, Jacob, Camouflage, Boysenberry, Flypaper, Radio Player, and "cover"

I don't know what else to say except I had a blast and Allister's set was the most fun I've ever had at a concert.

Piano Rock

Needless to say, last Saturday's concert was lots of fun. Fiction Plane was good. Their lead singer looked a lot like Sting and even had a hint of a British accent. Although, the people around me didn't seem to like them very much, a group of about 15 people even sat down for a while. Vendetta Red was a lot different than I expected. I downloaded some of their mp3s before the show and they seemed like they'd be good, but they ended up mainly just screaming way too much. Juliana Theory wasn't as good live as I thought they would be. I can't believe they didn't play Congratulations, with such a cool guitar part and the fact that their CD has a video of them playing it live you would think they would have.

Something Corporate was simply amazing as always. They defintely got the crowd into their songs more so than any of the other bands. Though there's something very amusing about seeing/hearing a bunch of 12 year old girls singing "I kissed a drunk girl." And I have to admit setting the piano and stool on fire at the end of the show was a fun touch.

Here's the setlist for SoCo as best as I could remember:
Konstantine
Fall
Straw Dog
Little
I Want To Save You
The Astronaut
Drunk Girl
I Woke Up In A Car
Punk Rock Princess
Hurricane
Wait
If You C Jordan