This time I caught the final few songs of the opening band at least. But I mean, who starts a Saturday night show at 6:30, seriously?
Also, one consistent comment I'll refrain from repeating is that whoever was doing sound tonight should be fired. It was worse than any professional show I've been to in my life. The bass drowned and muffled everything and the kick drum sounded like a gunshot. If any drum should sound like a gunshot, it's the snare.
There for Tomorrow was the opener and, from what I saw, may not be much of anything special live, but the music is good. The band themselves seemed like the typical first-time-on-a-big-tour band. A bit rigid on stage and quite as comfortable as the other bands. I do plan on checking out their myspace though and seeing how the recorded music sounds. Hopefully as good as it did live.
Straylight Run was the band I came to this show for, really. I had seen the other 2 major bands several times prior. At first, I was really disappointed, due to my fault alone. I did not realize Michelle had quit the band and I was greatly in the mood for those beautiful female vocals that were no longer with the band. That aside, the band did well lacking her presence. The setlist stuck to primarily older material, where Michelle's role was less prevalent and more easily removed. As it turned out, this was nice because I love the old material. the closing song was Big Shot and wow that song is incredible live. It was so powerful to me on CD at one point in my life that I couldn't see it getting better, but the live version blows the CD version away. I wish I'd had a video recorder.
Scary Kid Scaring Kids are from Arizona, so naturally the home crowd was pumped to see them return. I saw these guys very often about 3 or 4 years ago, and it seems that in the time between then and now they've gone through a lot of changes. I believe the lineup is a bit different. The band looks like they should be playing metal. They still bring the energy though. In fact, I was worried that seeing them at such a large venue after spending so much time with them at venues where I was literally falling onto the stage with them would spoil the live experience of the band for me. As it turns out, I will contine to assert that these guys are one of the best live acts I've seen. They are energetic, entertaining, tight, and happy. I miss being able to see them on a monthly basis.
Anberlin played their best set that I've ever seen by them. They seemed to stick primarily to Cities and Never Take Friendship Personal material, but that's ok as it's their best work, but it was odd that they refrained playing many songs from their recently released album. No complaints here, however. The highlights of the show were The Feel Good Drag, a song I've never seen them play live before, and which I assume the rest of the audience had not either, and they were applauding for several minutes after this track, as the band just stood with jaws dropped at the crowd enthusiasm for the performance. Then, the encore was *fin. As this is my favorite song by them, I am a bit biased, but this was an amazing performance. I swore I would never hear it live, due to its technicality and sweeping arrangements on the record, not to mention its length. They pulled it off great live though, and of course due to the length it ended up being the onyl song in the encore, but this song and Big Shot by Straylight Run were worth the ticket price alone.
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