Thursday / The Number Twelve Looks Like You / Paulson @ NYC 3/13

March 14, 2007

My first trip to Brooklyn to see a show, and it was pretty spectacular. Warsaw (the Polish National House) is like a traditional VFW or firehouse, and it’s located in a nice little neighborhood in Brooklyn (so it seemed) which reminded me of Port Richmond in Philadelphia.

Paulson opened the show; my only experience with these guys was Thursday’s secret show in Asbury Park a year ago, and I had been meaning to listen to their stuff more, but never got around to it. Luckily, I did have their album, so I gave it a few spins before the show, and I decided Window Frames was my favorite song on the first few listens, and they happened to play it live. I recommend the song to anyone who hasn’t head this band. They played well, despite having one of the most awkward stage presences I’ve ever seen. A solid opening act for sure.

The Number Twelve Looks Like You followed, and, unfortunately, it was the wrong venue for them since Warsaw doesn’t allow dancing/moshing/pushing/etc. The band really feeds off the energy of the crowd though, and they played quite well. It was very awkward to listen to a hardcore band (especially one so mixed with metal/grind elements) in that environment, but I’m sure they must be quite stellar in a better environment. There were five or six fans really into #12, and the band even let them sing from time to time, throwing the mic into the crowd. Definitely an interesting band, but if you don’t like the style, I’d imagine you wanted to throwup through their set. I’d like to see them at a hardcore festival in the proper environment. They played well.

Thursday was the real reason I ventured out to the Bronx, and they most certainly did not disappoint. I’ve always said Thursday sounds best on their off-tour dates, and this proved true tonight. It may have been how close I was to the stage (the venue wasn’t “packed tight”, but I imagine that its fire restrictions) and how the pushing was quite manageable, but this is one of my favorite Thursday shows in recent memory. The energy was incredible, and the setlist was very solid. Fourteen songs (a solid amount from Thursday), consisting of four Full Collapse, four War All The Time, five A City By The Light Divided, and Jet Black New Year. I think this order is correct; they really lumped all the singles together in the middle of the set.

For The Workforce, Drowning
The Otherside Of th Crash/Over And Out (Of Control)
Understanding In A Car Crash
Signals Over The Air
Counting 5-4-3-2-1
At This Velocity
Division St.
Into The Blinding Light
Jet Black New Year
This Song Brought To You By A Falling Bomb
Cross Out The Eyes
Autobiography Of A Nation
Concealer
Autumn Leaves Revisited

I didn’t expect them to open with Workforce; a pretty standard setlist, with Falling Bomb, Concealer, and Autobiography Of A Nation being “rare” songs tossed into the mix (presumably in place of songs like Paris In Flames, How Long Is The Night?, Sugar In The Sacrament, The Lovesong Writer). I really had hoped they would play Concealer tonight, after doing a great job with it in Hoboken in December (they haven’t played this song other than these two nights in….years). It’s probably one of my favorite Thursday songs due to its raw aggression and emotion. It’s even better live, Geoff and the band really pour their souls into some songs–and this is one of them.

In place of a pit due to Warsaw’s restrictions, Geoff just encouraged everyone to hop the barrier and rush towards the stage, filling in the barrier. Security wasn’t happy about this, but it was nice and reminded me of older days when I used to see the band without any barriers. He wanted to do the wall of death (ala Sick of It All, and bands before them, obviously) for Into The Blinding Light–like usually–but Warsaw just wouldn’t have it.

Geoff expressed disgust with the state of popular rock music, talking about how bands that are so lucky to get the spotlight to share their songs with the world “don’t say anything [important]“. He encouraged anyone in a band to be sure to have something meaningful to say when you write a song, before kicking into Counting 5-4-3-2-1, a song he said the label hoped would make them huge.

Thursday played very well, and I was very pleased with the set list. I wish them the best of luck opening for My Chemical Romance in a few days, I hope they reach a new audience.

Leave a Comment » | New York City, Paulson, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Thursday, Warsaw | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Jack’s Mannequin / theAUDITION / We Are The Fury @ Asbury Park 3/2

March 3, 2007

My third and final show on this tour. Go back a few days and you can check out my other reviews of this tour (click the “Jack’s Mannequin” tags, or just go back–you know what to do).

We Are The Fury didn’t suck this time.. I actually considered their set to be somewhat respectable. I wrote these guys off after their shitty performances in NYC and Philly.. but maybe I’ll give em another shot. They opened the show at like 5:30PM; The Graduate was supposed to play but the Stone Pony wanted the show over by 9PM so they got dicked.. they were still hanging out though. theAUDITION was not as good as the other two nights.

Jack’s Mannequin was stellar, once again. It’s great to see Andrew back at the small clubs (my first experience with JM was the TLA in Philly). A fight between two scene sluts broke out, which was funny.

This was Friday night, it’s now Sunday night, so here’s my best guess at the setlist. These are all the songs, but the order is a little sketchy.

Holiday From Real (with a capella opening through the PA)
I’m Ready (without the first dialog, like normal)
The Mixed Tape (with extended “NYC/LA” rain ending.. no “asbury Park” mentioned, oddly)
Rescued
The Mixed Tape
Miss Delaney
Dark Blue (with extended introduction)
I’m On Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover)
Last Straw, AZ
She Paints Me Blue
Heroine
Bruised
Into The Airwaves (with extended introduction)
West Coast Winter
Changes (David Bowie cover)
MFEO (with brief U2 – With or Without You cover)

Notes:

1) The band apparently “just learned” the Springsteen cover, inspired by visiting the Stone Pony–the house The Boss built. Andrew said he printed out the lyrics online about an hour before he came on stage. They rigged up this little Cassio for him.. it wasn’t a bad cover for just learning the song. The staff was amused.

2) Changes featured their tour manager, a gentleman whose name I forget. He played the sax.. quite well, too. Great cover. Andrew was saying how they played this a couple of times before, but no one liked it… “…not to say anything negative, but if you don’t like it…………..you can go fuck yourself”, said Andrew to us. I’m glad people knew it, more than the Springsteen cover. Bruce and David, FTW. This brings my non-Soco covers list to: Simon and Garfunkel, The Police, The Everly Brothers, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie…. I think that’s all the covers, too :)

3) I noticed he played the same amount of songs in Philly and Asbruy, but one less in NYC. Weak.

4) Much less drinking for all the band members.. presumably because the show was over by 9PM.

5) Head Automatica was absent, but not billed.

6) Much less song explaining and talking, which was odd. He did say thanks to everyone for being a lot more respectful and not yelling out “PLAY KONSTANTINE”… then of course these little ten year old fat emo girls had to yell out “PLAY KONSTANTINE ANDREW I LOVE YOU OH MY GODZ!!!111″. Of course.

7) JM played excellent. The sound was tight. I miss La La Lie, I’m pretty sure it will be back on the next tour though or at Bamboozle.

8) Does Dr. J have some sort of doctorate? Andrew called him “the only man on stage with a degree in medicine”, but I don’t know if he’s joking.

9) The extended intros… does anyone know if they are partial covers?

10) That’s the end of my JM show reviews; next reviews will be Thursday/Paulson/#12 from Brooklyn, NY. Check out my Philadelphia review and New York City review for more details about this tour.

2 Comments | Asbury Park, Jack's Mannequin, Stone Pony, theAUDITION, We Are the Fury | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Jack’s Mannequin / Head Automatica / theAUDITION / We Are The Fury @ NYC 2/28

March 1, 2007

This is my second date on the West Coast Winter tour. You can read my first review here; I stand by much of what I said then, so refer to that one for any detailed analysis you feel is missing here–I probably covered it there.

I arrived at the Hammerstein Ballroom midway into We Are The Fury’s setlist–I knew I didn’t need to see them this time. I wish I would have realized how the night would have unfolded, I would have showed up to miss them entirely, the crowd simply wasn’t “packing in” until Jack’s Mannequin. I could have been equally close if I showed up on Head Automatica’s last song..

theAUDITION were good again. Upon further review, this band is in the middle of a serious crisis. They want to have a “hardcore”, rough image.. but they don’t play that style of music. They need to embrace their current sound and leave the “let’s start a fucking pit!!” cries before each song, or simply write some harder songs (which I’m sure they’re capable of). They were hanging out in the crowd during Head Automatica’s set, pretty cool guys I’d imagine.

Head Automatica, in their home state, played pretty well. They played my favorite Popaganda song again (Oxy), but still didn’t play my favorite old song (Brooklyn).. I wonder if they even do that live anymore? They also introduced I think it was three new songs.. they’re very good, definitely better than the hit-or-miss-mess that is Popaganda. A lot more energy from this band tonight versus Philadelphia.

Jack’s Mannequin was tremendous once again. I’ve seen this band in many different venues (I didn’t catch them with OAR–they blow–or Panic–they too blow–though) in many different states, and they’re always great live.

Let me try to get this set list down, keep in mind I just got done a midterm that I didn’t study for since I was at the show, so my mind is pretty fried.

Holiday From Real (with a capella opening through the PA)
I’m Ready (without the first dialog, like normal)
The Mixed Tape (with extended “NYC/LA” rain ending)
Rescued
The Mixed Tape
Miss Delaney
Dark Blue (with extended introduction)
Last Straw, AZ
She Paints Me Blue
Heroine
Bruised
Into The Airwaves (with extended introduction)
West Coast Winter
Message In A Bottle (The Police Cover)
MFEO (with brief U2 – With or Without You cover)

That’s very close to the order of the songs… the middle may be mixed up, but it’s very, very close.

I’m going to make notes, since I think it’s easier to read:

1) What happened to the pushing? At the Philly date and now this date, no one pushed. Aside from the very first JM tour (where no one knew the material), everyone ALWAYS pushes for EVERY show Andrew is at (Soco, JM). Everyone always pushes to the front.. I didn’t notice how “non-compressed” everyone was until the last song when the crowd moved up 20 feet and didn’t even get “compressed”.

2) I’m becoming in love with Last Straw, AZ.. these last two times live it has been stellar. I can’t get the chorus out of my head.

3) He didn’t explain some of the songs like he did in Philly, but Andrew gave the most detailed explanation about the connection between Dark Blue and She Paints Me Blue I’ve heard yet.. anyone who’s heard more, expand on it: he rented a room in the desert (sorry, I forget what city/state) from Jordan of NFG in the winter, and he only had one 75watt blue light to light the room. When he toured the east coast, in Atlanta, he really missed a girl he lived with in that one room, and that song is about that.. I’m forgetting some of it, sorry.

4) I’m loving the extended intros to some of the songs.. I think some of them are brief covers. Anyone know?

5) I didn’t expect them to pull off such a ROCKING cover of The Police, but, holy shit, they did. Danny from theAUDITION came out to close out the song. This marks the fourth non-Soco JM cover I’ve seen live: Everly Bros, Police, Tom Petty, Simon and Garfunkel.

6) Andrew was noticeably less intoxicated than normal. He didn’t have any beers on stage, nor did he really get down with the drinking until the encore.

7) Dr. J has a huge fucking collection of action figures. I’m going to give him one Friday, I decided. It has expanded way past the Larry Bird and Gumby days of past. Moreover, he is a sick bassist, but, like all the other solos, they went right over the head of the 16 year old average crowd.

8) PUNK ROCK PRINCESS.

I know hundreds (no exaggeration) of girls who live and die for this song.. well I finally got Andrew’s story behind the song. I’ve never heard this before, so it was big news to me.. apparently Andrew was a senior in HS and, “like most respectable seniors” [sic] he decided to hit on and pick up a freshman girl. He was pretty sure she was using him for his car (his mom’s Toyota Camry), and they had nothing in common. It was like a “Mazzarotti to an LA prostitute” though.

Anyway, this girl wanted him to take to her a Face To Face show. (At this point, I am cheering for Face To Face–RIP :(–, and everyone looks at me like I have six heads since this band is wayyy out of the listening circle of this crowd. Andrew responds to me at least, “sorry, I didn’t care about punk rock then and I don’t now”). He decided he’d write a song about this girl and shit really shallow relationship, where she was a punk rock princess and he was just a garage band king. I wish someone recorded this audio, it’s a good story, and Andrew, as one of my ex-girlfriends said at one point, “has an amazing way with words.”

9) Andrew explained many different times what it’s like to come back to the city he was diagnosed with his terrible sickness.. the pain, the suffering that happens again.. and how he feels shows overcome this (Irving Plaza was mentioned many times).

10) They played one less song tonight (no 21 and Invincible), but Andrew did mention Philadelphia, saying how he was carried throughout the EF on the crowd.. well he tried it again, this time a lot less successful. The girls were simply pulling him to the ground (they even got a sock and a shoe!).. I lifted Andrew up off the ground though and did manage to get him back towards the stage, while using my left arm to pick up the plethora of fat emo girls who were dying in the stampede on the ground. I’m a big guy, I lift, but God damn, some of these thirteen year old girls are fucking huge.

That’s all that comes to mind, I just wanted to throw this review up before I go to my next class and work.. if I’m forgetting something I’ll try to add it. Check out my Philly review for more information, too.

1 Comment | Hammerstein Ballroom, Head Automatica, Jack's Mannequin, New York City, theAUDITION, We Are the Fury | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

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