I am on the mend. At least now I can say that I am trying.
As you can probably guess, I am ridiculously backlogged on this thing. Everybody always says that the longer you go without posting, the harder it is to post because the expectation of momentousness becomes greater and greater. This is true, and my post-hiatus trend of long-winded, obsessively detailed and photo-illustrated entries doesn't help. Eventually I would like to go back to brief, random posts about a ridiculous Jessica Simpson quote or whatever, but this is not that day.
Herein, then, is the obligatory weekend recap:
On Friday night, I went with
cadette, her friend Leigh,
everydaysushi and my roomies Heather and Bikki (who does not have a web presence) to see Brand New open for Dashboard Confessional at Madison Square Garden. Aja, Leigh, Bikki and I were mostly there for Brand New; Heather came for Brand New but since I apparently forgot to tell her who was the headliner, was ecstatic to find out she would be there to see Dashboard as well.
None of us was willing to spring for more than the $15 tix, which I only bought on Monday, so we were in the nosebleed section. Still, we weren't behind the stage, which was better than I can say for when Mel, Harmony and I saw Coldplay at the Garden last year.
The view from the cheap seats:
Sorry for the blurriness. My Pretentious Amateur Photographic luck was apparently depleted after the MCR show back in October. This is the best I could get of Brand New:
Yeah... not the best, but at least you can see some of the cool lighting. What's most unfortunate about these pictures, though, is not that they're out of focus but that there is no way to capture the sheer insanity that is Brand New live. Vin Accardi, the guitarist, was more manic than even Frankie from My Chemical Romance. He probably spent as much time playing in the fetal position as he did standing upright, and at one point he was doing something that I can only guess was playing his guitar like a violin, using the lip of the stage as a bow. And Jesse Lacey (the frontman) definitely matched Vinnie in attempts to trash his instrument before the end of the set. There was one moment when Vin once again fell to the floor, and what did Jesse immediately do but flop over right on top of him, both of them shredding without missing a beat. BN is one of my favorite bands but I don't know as much about them personally as I do, say, MCR or Switchfoot. Aja filled me in on some of Jesse's obsession with his religious upbringing (which I had picked up on in their excellent new album, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me), and that was definitely on my mind during some of Jesse's more inexplicable antics, such as an extended, improvised bridge during their final song in which Jesse started intoning, "Sing to meeee.... speak to meee..." More than a little creepy. BN ended their set with Vin literally crawling off the stage (his ax nowhere to be found) and Jesse strolling off alone, dragging the mic stand with him and crooning, "Danke schoen, darling, danke schoen..."
So this crazy!rock!star! behavior is usually a pet peeve of mine, and, like Mel said, destroying your instruments hasn't been original since Cobain and Co. did it over a decade ago. BUT -- Brand New is legitimately a great band. Their live sound is definitely not as polished as MCR's (and I compare the two since they are both roughly part of the same scene), which is kind of ironic because MCR definitely used to be ridiculously raw live (in a bad way, in my opinion) and BN's music is in general more melodic than MCR's (also in my opinion). I do prefer listening to Brand New on headphones (the best way to experience their new album, I think), but the cacophony of their live show is definitely more due to weird personal expression and apathy toward mainstreaming their sound than lack of talent and skill. You can check out this acoustic performance of "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" if you want proof.
And just for my personal recollection, the setlist:
- "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" - from Deja Entendu (their second album)
- "The Shower Scene" - from Your Favorite Weapon (their first album)
- "Jaws Theme Swimming" - from Deja Entendu
- "Sowing Season (Yeah)" - from The Devil and God...
- "Degausser" - from The Devil and God...
- "Luca" - from The Devil and God...
- "You Won't Know" - from The Devil and God...
- "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" - from Deja Entendu
Some other time I'll review the songs themselves... or I'll just save them for the next megamix CD game.
Anyway, so Dashboard came on next. Bikki, Aja and Leigh took off (the latter two after finally hearing Chris Carabba play an "oldie," "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most").
The good thing about our seats was that we could see the man behind the curtain:
Are a lot of bands employing this trick nowadays -- playing your opening verse before the dramatic curtain drop? Because MCR did the same thing.
Anyway, Dashboard opened with "Don't Wait" off its newest album, Dusk and Summer... and then played an entire set of songs I don't know, sorry. I did recognize the phrase "Screaming Infidelities" as one of its songs, though. And then I looked up a bunch of Dashboard lyrics and they are definitely as emo as I heard they were. (The emo discussion has been done to death, but it is sorely misapplied as a catch-all term for a lot of modern rock. The way I see it, only bands like Dashboard are, lyrically, quintessentially emo. BN is angst, AFI is goth and MCR is horror-camp. And bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco are more like teen-journal (not that there's anything wrong with that!).)
Grrr. Why didn't my Brand New photos turn out this well? You get better lighting when you're a headliner.
This photo came out kind of blurry, but I wanted to show Dashboard's backdrop. Different lighting effects put the paper lanterns and antique loft windowpanes to good use. It was very pretty.
So apparently Dashboard is beloved by the college set. Chris performed quite a few songs on this little catwalk, surrounding by the adoring masses (who still managed to get some crowd-surfing in. (Really? To Dashboard Confessional?) I like how cell phones are the new lighters. Chris Carabba is definitely very good-looking -- almost too handsome, in a Ken-doll way, and he's clearly a good musician. His voice is as good live as it is in recordings, albeit a bit too high for my taste.
Oh, I did recognize both songs in the encore! Dashboard played "Vindicated" (which has endeared itself to me both by its inclusion on the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack as well as in one of the most amazing fanvids (BtVS and Angel the Series) I've ever seen) and "Hands Down," which is just a song that I really do like.
After the show, Mel, Heather and I walked to my old hangout Skylight Diner on Ninth and met up with Shurath, Marissa and Arat for a late dinner/nightcap. Between dinner at Houston's on Thursday, being given an extra patty on my cheeseburger in the cafeteria on Friday, my meatloaf sandwich at Skylight and the filet at work on Sunday night, I've had A LOT of beef lately.
On Saturday Mel came over during the afternoon for our long-awaited "creative meeting." She gave me some very thoughtful input on my screenplay (anyone else willing to read it and give me feedback, please let me know!) and we also worked a bit on a very cool collaborative project that I'm very excited about and that I will hopefully see through to fruition.
Finally, I'm so glad that I decided Park Slope wasn't as far I prejudged, because I went to
maggith and Kyle's holiday party and it was so much fun. Their apartment is very hip, but not at all in an obnoxious way. I learned how to read a binary clock and we had fun blowing Kyle's mind with geographically impossible Viewmaster images. Also, I ate Cup O' Noodles from a gas station and way too many garlic pita chips and had BOTH eggnog and cider, served in the comfortable manner of the south.
Here endeth the weekend recap. Look for the long-awaited Taiwan and Thanksgiving posts in the future!