Paramore / Jack’s Mannequin / Phantom Planet / Paper Route @ Asbury Park 8/16

August 18, 2008

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in New Jersey’s newly renovated shore community, Asbury Park, the line for Paramore’s The Final Riot! Tour extended for blocks down the boardwalk. Young teenage girls (many with their parents) waited patiently until 6PM for the Convention Center doors to open; a sign on the building reads “Greetings from Asbury Park”, a  nod to Bruce Springsteen, perhaps welcoming those parents who grew up on listening to the legend.

Unfortunately, the Convention Center isn’t a great place to see a show: the floor space is enormous, holding at least 3500, and the sound is poor. Fortunately, however, headliners Paramore and direct-support Jack’s Mannequin are two bands that sound great regardless of the venue. Each band normally puts on a tremendous show; expectations for these two acts were extremely high entering the aging Convention Center.

Nashville’s Paper Route, an extremely dry act with spacey guitars, swooning vocals, and handful of keyboards, opened the evening at 7PM. It’s bland, it’s boring, and it’s been done over the last decade by many other acts who do it much, much better. The band’s sole shining point, though, is drummer JT Daly who kept the band at least somewhat palatable with exciting drum rhythms throughout most of the set.

Phantom Planet took the stage next. The band, around for nearly fifteen years, put on a solid show that was at least entertaining for the half hour or so they were on stage. Twenty-eight year old vocalist/guitarist Alex Greenwald leads Phantom Planet with a certain charisma that carries the band despite their lack of any genuinely interesting songs, somehow connecting with an audience half his age. After four or five songs the band closed with their Al Jolson inspired “California”, the soundtrack to an MTV generation raised on Fox’s The OC. The band played the song well, giving the crowd a chance to sing their hearts out the entire time.

Andrew McMahon

Jack's Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon during "La La Lie", a song he dedicated to "best friends".

Direct-support Jack’s Mannequin came on next, opening with “I’m Ready”. Although the band played a blazingly quick set (just about forty minutes), they managed to pack a punch during their brief time on stage. Still, it’s unfortunate that the band didn’t get more time, as they clearly shine as headliners–when band leader Andrew McMahon has time to interact with the crowd. “Kill The Messenger” received slightly new treatment, dropping an old live-only verse for a few lines from The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”; the stellar “Dark Blue” was noticeably without its live-only intro. Standard closer “MFEO” received the same U2 treatment as always (lines from “With or Without You”), but the song was shortened up a bit, removing the usual band introductions and solos during the song’s end. “The Resolution”, a song from the upcoming The Glass Passenger, was strong and fit into the older catalog surprisingly well. The band’s set:

I’m Ready
Bruised
La La Lie
Dark Blue
Kill the Messenger
The Resolution
The Mixed Tape
MFEO

It’s fair to say Paramore exploded onto the stage and didn’t stop all night. A few choice acoustic and piano-driven moments aside, the band hit hard for over an hour. Billed as The Final Riot! Tour, it’s not surprising (and extremely satisfying) that the band’s setlist was extremely Riot!-heavy. Pop-rock/arena-rock hasn’t sounded this tight or this good in a long time; whereas most pop-rock bands are bland, gimmicky, and unfulfilling, Paramore does everything right. The stage setup was complete with a glowing “RIOT” sign hung in the rafters and a ramp platform for the band members to run up and down on.

Opening with solo spotlights on guitarist Josh Farro (up on the ramp), and then the rest of the band until vocalist Hayley Williams, Paramore began with Riot! closer “Born for This”, a track that set the tone for the next hour. Partially inspired by Refused’s “Liberation Frequency” (”we want the airwaves back”), the band may play pop-rock but is clearly influenced by great hardcore acts. Drummer Zac Farro’s beats aren’t basic and empty; he’s actively doing over-the-top fills and double-bass drumlines. “Here We Go Again”, regularly infused with part of At the Drive-In’s “One Armed Scissor”, received the same treatment tonight–the results were great, as always. The band also briefly touched on Leonard Cohen’s incredible “Hallelujah” before jumping into their song of the same name (no relation).

Vocalist Hayley Williams

Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams, singing in front of drummer Zac Farro. (Photo by Jen Pero)

Things slowed down through parts of the set when Hayley sits down with a keyboard on songs like “We Are Broken”, dedicated to Love146, a charity aimed to abolish child sex trafficking. Josh Farro and touring guitarist Taylor York picked up acoustic guitars for “My Heart”, a nice rendition of All We Know is Falling’s closing track. It’s actually incredible to see how much the band progressed from that 2005 effort to 2007’s Riot!; songs like “Pressure” and “Emergency”, standouts from their 2005 debut, feel empty and hollow compared to most of the band’s latest work, though that isn’t to say the older material isn’t still solid.

Paramore’s final riot was fifteen songs, with two encores. The band first stepped off stage after “For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic”, returning to play three more songs. “Misery Business”, the second encore and band’s biggest single, closed the show.

Born For This
That’s What You Get
Here We Go Again
Fences
Crushcrushcrush
Let the Flames Begin
When it Rains
My Heart
Decoy
Pressure
For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
We Are Broken
Emergency
Hallelujah
Misery Business

It was a bit awkward being around quite so many young girls and parents the whole evening, and the “pits” opened for some of Paramore’s faster songs may have been the funniest things I saw all weekend. Still, the band put on an incredible show and continues to prove why they lead the pop-rock pack, faltering only once all night: an extremely awkward (and luckily, extremely brief) cover of Flo-Rida’s “Low” tossed into “CrushCrushCrush”. From a mostly pitch-perfect Hayley to a completely tight band behind her, it’s hard not to recommend The Final Riot! Tour, especially with Jack’s Mannequin as direct-support.

6 Comments | Convention Center, Jack's Mannequin, Paper Route, Paramore, Phantom Planet | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

The Bamboozle (Day One) 5/3

May 6, 2008

Since 2006, The Bamboozle festival has grounded itself outside Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Each year, over one hundred bands play for two days over the course of the first weekend in May. Beginning around noon and ending near midnight, the festival showcases the smallest, unsigned bands to the most popular acts in the country. It’s normally a humid affair–this time, however, the weather was cold and rainy.

I arrived on Saturday around noon to check out the first day of The Bamboozle, heading to the 5 Gum side stage to check out Long Island’s The Sleeping. A post-hardcore act that I’ve caught at Bamboozle in the past, the band performed with Sebastian Bach (ex-Skid Row), playing a solid set featuring some of Bach’s material in addition to The Sleeping staples such as “If Your Heart Was Broken”. Though later in the evening after fatigue set in I’d chill out to some pop-rock acts, The Sleeping were a great way to kick off the weekend with a crowd that was certainly ready to dance. The band sounded tight; guitarist Cameron Keym’s metal-inspired licks were sharper than ever, and vocalist Douglas Robinson captured the crowd.

Story of the Year were next on my list at 2PM, so I ventured to the Asbury Park main stage. Let it be known that the sound, for both Day One and Day Two, was terrible on the Asbury Park stage–unfortunate because about half of the bands I saw during the weekend set up on that stage. As I’m not a professional audio engineer, I’m not exactly sure what the problem was but the sound was never consistent: bass was either muddy or non-existent, and microphones never maintained the same volume, often cutting out nearly entirely for seconds at a time.

Despite common sound issues that would plague nearly twenty bands on that stage, Story of the Year sounded excellent for the duration of their set. It’s been some time since i caught the band on tour, but their live show had always been their strongest point; it’s great to see they’ve only improved over time. Their set:

And the Hero Will Drown
The Antidote
Anthem of Our Dying Day
Wake Up
In the Shadows
Until the Day I Die
Is This My Fate? He Asked Them

Over half of their set came from their debut Page Avenue, but the band unfortunately included two of their lesser songs from that release in “Anthem of Our Dying Day” and “Under the Day I Die” but did include two of the strongest, opener “And the Hero Will Drown” and “In the Shadows”. The new songs from The Black Swan (”The Antidote”, “Wake Up”) sounded promising, so I’ll need to check out that album soon.

New Jersey ska-stalwarts Streetlight Manifesto were up next on the opposite main stage (which suffered from none of Asbury Park stage’s sound issues). The band played extremely well, with a large selection of songs coming from Somewhere in the Between. The band pleased the crowd with “Dear Sergio”, a song that engaged many people listening who were familiar with Catch 22’s Keasbey Nights but not necassrily Streetlight Manifesto.

At 3:30PM on the Nokia Ticket Rush stage, Vinnie Caruana played a set entirely of The Movielife songs with Set Your Goals as his backing band. Though he stated numerous times throughout the set that “this [wasn't] The Movielife”, you’d be hard pressed to find a single person in the crowd who was concerned with that fact. Vinnie sang like the band hadn’t broken up five years ago, with dead-on delivery of songs nearly a decade old. Set Your Goals’s (a band I wanted to see as well but passed up on to see Saves the Day) guitarists, bassist, and drummer covered each song with precision. Cuts included “Hand Grenade”, “Pinky Swear”, “Hey”, and “Face or Kneecaps” before the near-obligatory closer, “Jamestown”. Vinnie constantly thanked the crowd for giving him the chance to play these songs, but it was really the crowd constantly thanking him for resurrecting the songs of an incredible punk-pop band.

Dressed as cops and coming out to Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” on the PA, Less Than Jake took the Asbury Park stage at 4PM, opening with “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads”. My first time catching the band live, I was quite impressed with how tight the band sounded. I’m not a huge fan of the band (perhaps getting into them late into their career), but I respect their contributions to the genre and their live show convinced me to give them some more attention. Their full set:

All My Best Friends Are Metalheads
Last One Out Of Liberty City
Overrated
Gainseville Rock City
Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts
Great American Sharp Shooter
Ghosts Of You And Me
Science Of Selling Yourself Short
Look What Happened

I took an hour break between 4:30 and 5:30 to check out various tents and merchandise, picking up a great Refused Shirts For a Cure tee. SFaC is a great project; all proceeds go to the Syrentha J. Savio Endowment. The SSE provides financial assistance to underprivileged women who cannot afford expensive breast cancer medicine and therapy; there are a lot of shirt designs, I urge you to see if your favorite band is there and to pick one up for just $12.

I caught a little bit of theAUDITION and Bless the Fall, two bands I didn’t have much interest in checking out but stayed at for a little bit while talking to some friends. Chiodos played at 5:50 on the Asbury Park stage, my next destination. The band played a balanced mix between their two full-length albums; they sounded decent, and the crowd was explosive the entire time. The full setlist:

The Undertakers Thirst For Revenge Is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)
There’s No Penguins In Alaska
Baby, You Wouldn’t Last A Minute On The Creek
Teeth The Size Of Piano Keys
Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered
The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Refined
Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork

I rushed over to the opposing NowWhat mainstage before Chiodos was finished to catch New Jersey locals Saves the Day, who opened up with Stay What You Are’s “See You”. Chris Conley sounded tremendous: his voice was not only crisp and clear, but he sounded confident and in control of the crowd the entire time. When told the band had time for only one more song (the main stage times were getting increasingly backed up), he asked the crowd to pick between “Ups and Downs” and “Firefly”–”Firefly” apparently was the first thing he heard and played both that and then “At Your Funeral”, upping the count of songs from their 2001 LP to three. The full set:

See You
The End
Anywhere With You
You Vandal
Can’t Stay The Same
Head For The Hills
Shoulder To The Wheel
Firefly
At Your Funeral

It would have been nice to hear “Ups and Downs”, one of my favorite Saves the Day songs, but the band still played a great set nonetheless. The band has too much material to get picky about songs not played, especially when they picked nine great tracks anyway.

Jack’s Mannequin, another casualty of the Asbury Park stage, was next at 6:50; they didn’t start immediately after Saves the Day, so I managed to make it across the parking lot in time to get close to the stage before the band started. “Dark Blue”, with part of the extended introduction, kicked off the setlist which included a song from the upcoming The Glass Passenger (which certainly sounds promising — I was worried after a slew of less-than-stellar post-Everything in Transit tracks) and a cover from Something Corporate’s North. The set:

Dark Blue
Holiday from Real
The Mixed Tape
Suicide Blonde
Bruised
Kill the Messenger
La La Lie
Me and the Moon (Something Corporate cover)
MFEO

The band played well, but their sound was somewhat marred by the stage. Before “Kill the Messenger”, frontman Andrew McMahon commented on the weather; during the song (which features the lyrics “I’m going to send a little rain your way”) the misty rain slowly picked up. Even taking into account projection, the song had never felt so real or so powerful. Aside from the lack of staple “I’m Ready”, I don’t think I could have asked for a better setlist. “MFEO” is an incredible track that stands on its own, but it really works perfectly for closing a set, especially outdoors in the rain, in the parking lot.

Paramore played the Asbury Park stage at 8PM; almost immediately it was obvious just how poor the stage’s sound actually was, as one of the tightest pop-rock acts in the scene today suddenly sounded sloppy and uninteresting. The band kicked off with Riot!’s “Let the Flames Begin”, following it with All We Know is Falling single “Emergency”. Either during that track or during “Stop This Song (Lovesick Melody)”, a b-side from the Riot! sessions, the stage’s sound started to click back together and the band sounded incredible for the rest of their set, which was, in its entirety:

Let the Flames Begin
Emergency
Stop This Song (Lovesick Melody)
Here We Go Again
That’s What You Get
Pressure
For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
crushcrushcrush
Woah
Misery Business

“Here We Go Again” was sans the At The Drive-In mini-cover, instead segueing flawlessly into “That’s What You Get”. Much like an hour ago watching Jack’s Mannequin amongst teenage girls barely (if at all?) old enough to drive, I felt out of place singing along to every word, but it’s always refreshing to catch other guys mouthing the words: this is great pop music, and I’m glad that these young teens are growing up on true pop-rock, not manufactured radio garbage or Britney Spears-esq bubblegum, even if the band is dominating the radio with songs such as “Misery Business”, the set’s closer.

During the aforementioned hit single, I walked out of the crowd to get to Jimmy Eat World, an act I’m almost embarrassed to admit I had never seen live. The band’s performance was unparalleled by any other act all day, and their forty-five minute setlist was incredible:

Big Casino
Sweetness
Work
Always Be
Crush
Here It Goes
A Praise Chorus
Let It Happen
Dizzy
Bleed American
Pain
The Middle

The rain was a constant mist during their performance; it was a little chilly, but incredibly relaxing. There’s not much to be said about the band’s performance other than that their live sound is a near perfect recreation of their studio albums, from the guitar subtleties to the incredible harmonies.

Snoop Dogg closed Day One, coming on around 9:30. I was a little further back than normal (near the soundboard) for his set, but he still sounded pretty good. I had never seen him live, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he managed to hold my attention for some time. I left midway through his set to get to a party, but his full set was:

Murder Was The Case
P.I.M.P. (Remix)
Who Am I? (What’s My Name)
That’s That Shit
Gin And Juice
Lodi Dodi
Woof!
I Wanna Fuck You
Snoop’s Upside Ya Head
Beautiful
Nuthin’ But A G Thang
Ain’t No Fun
Deeez Nuuuts
Notorious DPG
Snoop Dogg
My Medicine
Sexual Eruption
Drop It Like It’s Hot

The entire day was great, as I got to see some older bands for the first time live in addition to seeing some of my favorites once again. The weather was great: I’d prefer chilly and rainy to blistering heat and humidity any day. Moreover, cell phone service actually worked, which allowed me to meet up with friends throughout the day. There was room for improvement though: I couldn’t find any time cards (something usually handed out when you walk in), and, to beat a dead horse, the Asbury Park stage sounded terrible. Scheduling was pretty solid: Set Your Goals and Men Women & Children were the only two bands I missed due to conflicting times.

If anyone has any corrections/updates to the setlists I posted (which should be accurate, but there’s always room for error), please post them in the comments.

3 Comments | Bamboozle, Chiodos, East Rutherford, Giants Stadium, Jack's Mannequin, Jimmy Eat World, Less Than Jake, Paramore, Saves the Day, Set Your Goals, Shirts For a Cure, Snoop Dogg, Story of the Year, Streetlight Manifesto, The Movielife, The Sleeping | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Paramore / The Starting Line / Set Your Goals @ Sayreville 10/23

October 24, 2007

It’s been some time since I’ve been to a show in which the crowd is composed almost exclusively of teenage girls and parents–the last one that comes to mind was the Nintendo Fusion tour, with headliner Fall Out Boy (and, more importantly, openers including Motion City Soundtrack and Boys Night Out). The show was billed to start at 7:30, and with just three bands, Starland Ballroom shows billed to begin at 7:30 usually begin at 8PM. Perhaps because of the average age–fifteen, excluding the extremes (eight years old and seventy years old)–and it being a “school night”, the show started way early, and I walked in late for the band I have yet to see live and wanted to see most…

Eulogy Records’s Set Your Goals. Sonically, a mixture of Lifetime, The Movielife, New Found Glory, Saves The Day, and CIV, Set Your Goals provides dual vocal punk-pop influenced strongly by elements of hardcore-punk. I only caught their final songs, including “Echoes” and “To Be Continued”, which were absolutely great. The crowd wasn’t into them at all, aside from a small group of dedicated Set Your Goals fans who promptly left the venue after their set.

Philadelphia’s The Starting Line, an act that has sold out Starland Ballroom as headliners at least three times, played next to an enthusiastic crowd. Honestly, I wish the band wrote better songs, because their live show is something that young bands should aspire to match. Though they have some good songs (which they played, including album openers “Up and Go” and “Making Love To The Camera”), as a whole the band doesn’t appeal to me, so I watched from the bar. The band closed with “The Best Of Me”, walking off stage as the crowd alone finished singing the final ten seconds of the song. Big bands that aren’t headlining a show, take note: you don’t have an encore, and this is exactly how to end your set. Very impressive.

Paramore finally took the stage a little before 10PM, and they came out to a documentary snippet (played via video projector behind the band) of what looked like a European riot during the early twentieth century. Kicking off with Riot! opener “For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic”, the band wasted no time setting the mood for their set. Riot! closer “Born For This” surprisingly followed–it’s almost the perfect way to end a set–and the band kept rolling, playing their instruments perfectly while vocalist Hayley Williams sang pitch-perfect over them. The fifteen songs played (five from their debut, nine from Riot! including a b-side, and a cover):

Pressure
Emergency
Never Let This Go
Here We Go Again
My Heart
For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
That’s What You Get
Misery Business
When It Rains
Let The Flames Begin
crushcrushcrush
Fences
Born For This
Decoy
Faces In Disguise (Sunny Day Real Estate cover)

The first day of the tour, Hayley was noticeably nervous between songs. At only eighteen years old, however, she is surprisingly mature and strong on stage, and I’m sure after a few dates on this tour she’ll settle into a rhythm. None of this affected her vocal performance, however, as she was pitch-perfect nearly all night.

“Faces In Disguise”, from Sunny Day Real Estate’s final album, The Rising Tide, was an excellent cover featuring Hayley on keyboard. A nice way to slow down the set, the band also used an emotional blend of footage in the background–typical Donnie Darko type blends of passing clouds, maturing flowers, rainfall, and other stock footage. Unfortunately, I may have been one of ten people in crowd of 2000 to know of the seminal emo/indie band, and certainly the only one within my range of vision (which was very good, standing at six feet tall and substantially taller than most of the crowd) to know the song. Hopefully the kids in the audience (who undoubtedly look up to Paramore) put down their Hawthorne Heights and helloGoodbye records and dig back to get Diary and other amazing albums of the early 1990s.

Hard-hitting “crushcrushcrush” followed, cranking the crowd’s energy back up to ten. Once their biggest single, “Pressure” followed; the band showed little sign of slowing down–they continued to perform flawlessly, in fact, getting better with every song before leaving the stage as the fans demanded an encore.

Riot! outtake “Decoy” kicked off the encore which was followed by Hayley hooking up a personal video camera to the video projector, taping the band and the crowd in the process. The camera still in hand for the final song, their current biggest hit to date, “Misery Business”, the band finished with a bang.

I picked up All We Know Is Falling sometime around summer 2005, and I couldn’t be more proud of this band’s progress since that time. Hayley has matured as a singer (and as a frontwoman) greatly since touring at only sixteen years old, and her bandmates are now playing flawlessly live. Transitioning from song to song, you wouldn’t know that the band has only been together for three years. If you’re looking for a pop-rock band with punk-pop influences, Paramore is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. Their albums are certainly a case for that argument, but the clase-closing evidence is their live show.

4 Comments | Paramore, Sayreville, Set Your Goals, Starland Ballroom, The Starting Line | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Warped Tour @ Englishtown 8/5

August 7, 2007

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been attending Warped Tour in Camden, the “Philadelphia stop” of the annual tour. To mix things up this year, I ventured north to Englishtown Raceway.

The first band I intended to see was Straylight Run, but I didn’t make it to their stage in time, unfortunately, so I kicked off the day with Christian hardcore/metalcore Underoath on the main stage closest to the entrance. I’ve enjoyed Underoath since 2002’s The Changing Of Times, but a few shoddy performances live have turned me off to the band somewhat, and I was hoping their performance today would convert me back into a follower (religious pun intended).

Playing selections primarily from their brutal Define The Great Line, the Florida six-piece dominated the crowd. I’m always disappointed that the band has abandoned the best song they’ve ever written (”When The Sun Sleeps”, from their old singer’s era), but new songs such as “In Regards To Self” are absolutely stellar live. Despite existing for nearly a decade, the band doesn’t dip into any material older than 2004’s They’re Only Chasing Safety, from which they played excellent songs (with especially precious titles) “A Boy Brushed Red…Living In Black And White” and “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door”. I walked away from Underoath’s set quite impressed, anxious to see them on their upcoming tour with Every Time I Die.

Somewhat like Underoath, Coheed and Cambria were once one of my favorite bands, but I’ve enjoyed them less and less in recent times. Also similar to Underoath, their Warped Tour performance changed my opinion of the band in a positive direction. With new a drummer in Chris Pennie (the founder of The Dillinger Escape Plan), the band’s live performance was immediately upgraded, and it showed on the hot afternoon. Integrating some of his math-influenced Dillinger styled playing into Coheed and Cambria’s progressive rock, the band sounded tighter than ever. The band opened with the stunning “Welcome Home”, and moved into some catchy pop-influenced songs such as “The Suffering” and “A Favor House Atlantic”. “Everything Evil”, one of the songs that hooked me onto Coheed and Cambria earlier in the decade, was improved with impressive new guitar work and double-bass drummed beats. The band closed their setlist with “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth”, and helped recapture why I enjoyed the band so much just three or four years earlier.

Chicago’s best dark-rock band, Alkaline Trio, played a great set that featured one brand new song and some older essentials. Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano split vocal duties well live, feeding off the energy of one older Warped Tour crowds of the day. Following their set, I wandered Englishtown Raceway, eager to learn the differences between the familiar Tweeter Center in Camden that I’ve grown accustomed to.

Englishtown certainly manages the space well, and all the stages are ultimately closer to each other, although the two main stages are placed on opposing ends of the parking lot (in stark contrast to Camden, which places its stages directly adjacent to each other). Checking out various tents, I didn’t find too much that interested me and for the first time didn’t buy anything from any of the tents. Even the “freebies” seemed tuned down this year; my pockets are usually overloaded with free stickers, discs, and promotions, but this year they held only my wallet and keys.

A Static Lullaby, a band I slightly enjoy but seem to spend too much time defending, were next on my list. I arrived at their stage to find a less-than-enthusiastic crowd; their performance couldn’t be described as the same, but it was certainly much less entertaining that I had hoped for. I decided to rehydrate myself instead of standing around listening to their screamer attempt to scream, and walked to the Monster truck and cooled down for a moment.

Chiodos was next on the main stage, and vocalist Craig Owens held the crowd’s attention with his high-pitched vocals and gut-wrenching screams over the band’s take on modern emocore/hardcore/metalcore tinged with keyboards and effects. Opening with “The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined”, the crowd (much like Underoath, filled with young girls) exploded into a handful of different pits. Unlike traditional hardcore pits, however, these modern bands seem to draw out ignorant teenagers doing what they believe is hardcore dancing. It couldn’t be any farther from that, however, and pits generally turn into push-moshing; no surprise, though, as I’d imagine most of the crowd is only into these bands as a trend–they’d likely learned their “moshing skills” from the previous trends such as Papa Roach or Korn. Chiodos played two new songs, each one as good as songs from All’s Well That Ends Well. Favorites from that debut album were also played (although nothing prior to that–in fact, I’m pretty sure all the material prior to that has been completely abandoned), such as “There’s No Penguins In Alaska” and “Baby You Wouldn’t Last A Minute On The Creek”. The band was quite tight musically, and I’ll certainly be picking up their next album, Bone Palace Ballet.

The Matches played the Hurley.com side stage, so I rushed over to catch them. Always exciting live, at festivals the band sticks to material mostly from Decomposer but did include older songs such as “Chain Me Free”. The Matches seem to attract a more respectful crowd than any other band, and the “pits” aren’t for slamdancing but more for jumping around, and, when “Salty Eyes” is played, waltzing. The band is very appreciative for its fans, and Shawn Harris even brought a girl up on stage who had created an intricate home-made shirt of the band’s lyrics. Playing near flawlessly for twenty-five minutes, the band closed with “Papercut Skin”.

One of the biggest surprise albums of 2007 is Paramore’s Riot!; their debut, All We Know Is Falling, was solid, but Riot! is a tremendous follow-up I wasn’t expecting. Paramore may always just be a vehicle for teenage vocalist Hayley Williams, but if that’s the case then she’s certainly riding in a luxury car. Paramore’s most distinguishing feature may be its vocals, but the music is fine-tuned and pop-perfect.

Paramore opened with their biggest single, “Misery Business”. At first, the band seemed sluggish and Hayley’s vocals were not quite as strong as I remembered from the last time seeing them. As if changing gears, however, the band exploded with their next few songs, including seamlessly flowing from one song to another without braking for even a second. “Here We Go Again” received a touch-up with the band integrating part of At The Drive-In’s essential “One Armed Scissor”. The band played others from All We Know Is Falling, as well, including “Pressure” and “Emergency”. Putting on one of the strongest performances of the day, Hayley Williams is certainly elevating herself to role-model status for a generation of confused teenage girls.

I wasn’t going to miss even a moment of Bad Religion, so I rushed across the parking lot to catch the eldest (and unquestionably most important) band on Warped Tour 2007’s lineup.  The band kicked off with the familiar “American Jesus” riff, and true punk-styled circles broke out in the crowd. The band played eleven songs, touching on nearly every essential Bad Religion song including “Social Suicide” and “Infected”. Midway through the band’s set, a man in a wheelchair made his way on top of the crowd, surfing it all the way to the stage, at which point the band announced it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. Greg Gaffin called out all the parents sitting in the distance on the raceway’s bleachers, but he quickly noted that in his old age, that’s where he would be watching bands perform. The band closed their strong set with “Sorrow”.

I did spend some time wandering around, catching parts of various bands’ setlists throughout the day, hearing pieces of The Starting Line and even All Time Low covering the essential punk-pop “Dammit”. I sat down for the first time all day and listened to Bryce Avary perform for awhile while waiting for Bayside to take the stage; the crowd of entirely teenage girls seemed to melt to every word of every The Rocket Summer song.

I had hoped to see Circa Survive, but their set conflicted with Bayside, who took the side stage as one of the last bands of the evening. The New York four-piece didn’t hold anything back, opening with “Montauk” from their self-titled album. Their setlist consisted of primarily songs from The Walking Wounded, which is certainly their strongest release to date. They played the title track from the album (with Aaron Gillepsie of Underoath), and also “They’re Not Horses, They’re Unicorns”, “Duality”, and “Carry On”. The band sounded tight as always, and the crowd didn’t show any signs of fatigue. Sirens And Condolences’s opening track “Masterpiece” was also played, and the band closed with “Devotion And Desire”.

Before leaving Englishtown, I caught the end of Tiger Army’s set, which included “In The Orchard” at a fan’s request and the standard closer, “Never Die”. I didn’t stick around for MC Chris (the very last act of the day), and headed back to the car as the evening was beginning to get dark. Certainly a solid Warped Tour lineup, and definitely a great place to see the show. I may be at Englishtown again next year instead of Camden.

Leave a Comment » | Alkaline Trio, Bad Religion, Bayside, Chiodos, Coheed and Cambria, Englishtown, Englishtown Raceway, Paramore, The Matches, Underoath, Warped Tour | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose