New Found Glory

Following a performance by opening act Kadawatha, New Found Glory started at 7:15 with “Truck Stop Blues” from their latest album, Not Without a Fight. “All Downhill From Here” followed, and a large portion of the crowd responded to the band’s most well-known song. Still, cuts from quintet’s most popular album — 2002′s Sticks and Stones — were the most exciting, and vocalist Jordan Pundik embraced the energy emitting from longtime fans that pushed their way to the front of an otherwise motionless crowd.

New Found Glory

For “Don’t Let Her Pull You Down”, the Florida quintet taught the audience the song’s namesake chorus using enormous, vibrant signs painted “DON’T”, “LET”, and “HER” (when flipped, the posterboard revealed “BUY OUR SHIRT”). “Hit or Miss” sounded great, and the band’s final cut, “My Friends Over You”, was equally impressive. Veterans of touring, and certainly familiar with larger venues, New Found Glory was sonically sound and exciting to watch during their ten-song setlist. The band pulled no punches, even using their guitar tech to play the keyboard parts live when necessary.

Truck Stop Blues
All Downhill From Here
It’s Not Your Fault
Understatement
Something I Call Personality
Kiss Me (Sixpence None the Richer cover)
Don’t Let Her Pull You Down
Hit or Miss
Failure’s Not Flattering
My Friends Over You

Tegan and Sara

Tegan and Sara Quin, identical twins from Canada, provided direct-support. Slower and more subtle than New Found Glory before them, the evening certainly shifted gears during the twins’ set. Supported by a backing band, the duo  surprisingly constructed half of their setlist from 2004′s So Jealous, strange because the band has released two much more popular albums since. Tegan and Sara undoubtedly drew a number of fans who appreciated the older cuts, though, even if it meant most of the set going over the heads of the Paramore-ready crowd familiar with just their newer, more mainstream material.

Tegan and Sara

Despite playing together for more than ten years, Tegan and Sara still sound rough around the edges. The band’s newest material relies heavily on air-tight production — consequently hitting harder in the studio — and the act’s constant pleas to the crowd to “calm down” because it was “too hot” were a bit off-putting when the crowd was barely moving at all. The penultimate “Northshore” featured the song’s various “don’t [verb]” lyrics on a giant screen behind the band while the twins traded fast-paced lyrics like “don’t bend, don’t bleed, don’t beg, don’t scream, don’t whine, don’t fight, don’t tell me”.

Tegan and Sara

Just hours before Tegan and Sara performed, a United States district court judge overturned California’s Proposition 8 — a ban on homosexual marriage. In celebration of the ruling that apparently touches a personal chord with the sisters, the duo performed “Underwater” from their 2002 full-length, If It Was You, to close their set. Tegan and Sara were enjoyable, but nothing remarkable; to truly enjoy the act’s quirky indie-pop, their studio albums are a much better choice.

You Wouldn’t Like Me
I Bet It Stung
The Con
Walking With a Ghost
So Jealous
Hell
Alligator
Back In Your Head
On Directing
Nineteen
Where Does the Good Go
Speak Slow
Northshore
Underwater

Paramore

By 9:35 Paramore began their set with a lengthy introductory jam, performed behind a stage-concealing curtain. As the band kicked into the opening licks of “Ignorance”, however, the curtain dropped and the Tennessee natives were revealed to the eager crowd. “Feeling Sorry”, another cut from the band’s latest album, Brand New Eyes, went next; in fact, the band played all of their most recent full-length except for “Brick By Boring Brick”, “Turn it Off”, and “All I Wanted”. Riot! single “That’s What You Get” followed, and frontwoman Hayley Williams sounded as strong as ever singing the song’s soaring chorus: “That’s what you get when you let your heart win!”

Paramore

Complementing an already solid lineup, Paramore added a third guitarist, Johnathan Howard, to the tour. The band rarely needs a third guitar, but songs like “Emergency” sounded somewhat beefed up by the addition. Also beefing up their live show were fun videos of the band played in the background during parts of the set, showing brief scenes like the band skateboarding through town or hanging around the house. Make no mistake, however, Paramore’s live show starts and ends with the band’s songs and not gimmicky videos.  “Decode” drew a deafening roar from the crowd — likely due to its use in Twilight — but the song is one of the band’s weaker cuts and indeed the only nick in an otherwise flawless set.

Paramore

Midway through the evening, Paramore’s setlist took an interesting turn with Williams singing a cover of Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough”, backed only by lead guitarist (and ex-boyfriend) Josh Farro on acoustic guitar. The brief tune found the two alone on the corner of the stage while the rest of the stage was being rebuilt to resemble a living room, complete with lamps and furniture. The band joined together on couches in the middle of stage to perform mellow, acoustic-based takes of “When it Rains”, “Where the Lines Overlap”, and “Misguided Ghosts”. The change of pace added a welcomed dynamic to Paramore’s otherwise fairly straight-forward arena-rock-ready set.

Paramore

“Let the Flames Begin” returned the band to their electric roots; the band extended the song with a special live-only bridge that has been a part of Paramore’s set for some time. The band returned to their 2005 debut with “Pressure”, with Williams introducing the rest of the band during the song’s drawn-out instrumental breaks. “The Only Exception” appeared to conclude evening, but Paramore returned moments later around 11PM with their breakout single “Misery Business”.

Ignorance
Feeling Sorry
That’s What You Get
For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
Emergency
Playing God
Careful
Decode
You Ain’t Woman Enough (Loretta Lynn cover)
When It Rains
Where the Lines Overlap
Misguided Ghosts
Let the Flames Begin
crushcrushcrush
Pressure
Looking Up
Misery Business

Paramore

It’s unclear why the band inexplicably removed “Brick By Boring Brick” from their encore — the song has been a part of the Honda Civic Tour all summer until Philadelphia — but even with that unfortunate omission Paramore still performed one of the best shows of the summer. Drawing from three excellent albums, the band crafts an exciting setlist that touches on a variety of styles within the punk-pop and pop-rock spectrum. Williams is a fantastic frontwoman anchored by rock-solid musicians, and the band’s live performances are undeniable evidence that the five-piece is more than studio magic.

Photographs credit to the excellent Becca Sawka.

Title Fight

Pennsylvania’s Title Fight was the first band I caught, playing earlier than scheduled on the Zumiez South Stage at 12:50PM. The four-piece’s take on melodic hardcore and punk-pop was enjoyable and refreshing in a genre that seems to be teeming with uninspired and bland acts (see: Four Year Strong, The Wonder Years, This Time Next Year). Sticking heavily to the solid The Last Thing You Forget released last year on Run For Cover Records, the band ripped through songs such as “No One Stays at the Top Forever”, “Memorial Field”, and album-closer “Western Haikus”, and properly energized the small crowd who caught their set early in the Bamboozle schedule.

The Pretty Reckless

While walking over to see The Pretty Reckless, I caught pieces of Score 24; the Long Island punk-pop band probably deserves a second glance, unlike The Pretty Reckless who were bland and motionless on stage. Fronted by sixteen year old Gossip Girl star Taylor Momsen (but really anchored by a backing band of far superior musicians and singers), The Pretty Reckless sang Gothic-inspired songs that seemed to drag without any hooks or memorable choruses. It’s disappointing but not inaccurate to sum up the band’s set with one of their own song titles: “Dull and Void”.

Relient K

Matt Thiessen-fronted Relient K played on the Sony Stage next, opening with “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been” from 2004′s Gold-certified Mmhmm. The band sounded crisp and experienced — the way a pop band touring for more than a decade should. Despite an enormous collection of seven full-length albums, the Ohio five-piece stuck almost entirely to their latest effort, Forget and Not Slow Down, including Thiessen’s favorite song, “Sahara”, which he described as being about lion cubs being eaten by birds of prey.

Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been
Forget and Not Slow Down
I Don’t Need a Soul
Sahara
Flare
Candlelight
Devastation and Reform

The Aquabats

The Aquabats win any award for most entertaining band of the day — skin-tight matching superhero costumes that certainly didn’t flatter a band in their late thirties; a battle of good versus evil that featured The Aquabats fighting a team of men in crab costumes; and a song about the joys of pizza and why eating slices after 9PM for so many years lead to the first issue of unflattering costumes. The veteran Orange County, California, six-piece started with “Fashion Zombies” and rolled through a string of comical songs such as “Super Rad”, “Pizza Day”, and “Look at Me (I’m a Winner)” before closing with Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Volume 2‘s “Pool Party”, featuring inflatable pool toys tossed and ridden into the crowd. A fun cover of “Suburban Home” went largely unappreciated, leaving me to wonder if anyone in the crowd had ever heard Descendents’s essential Mile Goes to College — probably not.

The tail end (“Flowers and Fireworks, “Cities”) of All the Day Holiday’s set on the smaller Aquarian Stage sounded solid, but it was the stark contrast of Jersey locals Float Face Down on the opposite stage just moments later that captured my attention with their surprisingly large fan base and absolutely brutal metal/hardcore hybrid. Enormous pits of hardcore dancing spanned both stages in what must have amounted to being one of the largest pits in Bamboozle’s five-year history outside Giants Stadium.

Against Me!

Under the guise of Gegen Mich, Against Me! began a thirty-minute set on the Zumiez South Stage around 5PM with “High Pressure Low”, the first of four songs from the band’s solid White Crosses, an album to be released in early June on Sire Records. The album’s title track — described by frontman Tom Gabel as a pro-choice anthem — preceded an excellent performance of “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” from 2oo2′s Reinventing Axl Rose. The small crowd, intimate singalongs, and top-notch performances by Gabel, guitarist Andrew Seward, bassist James Bowman, and drummer George Rebelo made Against Me! easily one of the day’s strongest acts.

High Pressure Low
Don’t Lose Touch
New Wave
White Crosses
Pints of Guinness Make You Strong
I Was A Teenage Anarchist
Suffocation
White People for Peace
Thrash Unreal

Saves the Day

Saves the Day began with Through Being Cool lead-off “All-Star Me” and stuck with thirteen of the band’s strongest songs during their thirty-five minute set. A string of the band’s better cuts from In Reverie, Sound the Alarm, and Under the Boards were enjoyable, but it wasn’t until the band returned to older material such as “Firefly” and “Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots” that the crowd really responded. As if to contradict 2001′s Stay What You Are, though, the band played the much more recent “Can’t Stay the Same”. Throughout the set, bandleader Chris Conley sounded great, hitting even some of the more difficult notes that seem to be more prevalent on the band’s newer songs. Unfortunately, after the blasts of energy from “Shoulder to the Wheel” and the penultimate “At Your Funeral”, “Kaleidoscope” closed the set and reminded the crowd that Saves the Day no longer writes the fast-paced anthems that they were once-known and renowned for.

All-Star Me
The End
Radio
Anywhere With You
Firefly
Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots
Can’t Stay the Same
Eulogy
Freakish
Shoulder to the Wheel
At Your Funeral
Kaleidoscope

Something Corporate

The most anticipated moment of the day had to be  Something Corporate‘s first New Jersey set in five years, and, to cut right to it, Andrew McMahon and friends absolutely delivered. The beautiful opening riffs of “Hurricane” started the band’s nine-song set with McMahon’s crooning: “Shake down you make me break for goodness sake..”. North‘s “21 and Invincible” was fun, but the return to Leaving Through the Window with “I Woke Up in a Car” was one of the set’s  strongest moments. “If You C Jordan” started to show its age — really, the song’s subject matter puts McMahon back into the late 1990s — but was still enjoyable, especially with the energetic frontman jumping on the piano’s keys.

Something Corporate

Undeniably the highlight of the band’s forty-five minute set was the ten-minute ballad, “Konstantine”. The song exposes McMahon’s soul and puts him alone in front of a piano to tell a story of lost love. A fairly simple composition, the song’s true beauty comes from its raw emotion and painstakingly honest lyrics. By the time McMahon addresses the song’s namesake character with the haunting “Did you know I miss you?” near the end of the song, it’s hard not to feel the songwriter’s entire emotional burden.

Something Corporate

“Punk Rock Princess” rounded out the nine-song set, leaving an enormous Bamboozle crowd wanting much, much more at 8PM on Saturday evening. McMahon’s elegant performance and stage presence (paraphrased, “Bamboozle, it’s a beautiful thing to play the sun out of the sky for you”) is just too charming to not want a full tour out of Something Corporate, who performed as a five-piece that also included Josh Partington, Clutch Page,  Brian Ireland, and Jack’s Mannequin guitarist Bobby Anderson.

Hurricane
21 and Invincible
I Woke Up in a Car
Me and the Moon
Fall
Space
If You C Jordan
Konstantine
Punk Rock Princess

Chiodos

Chiodos played on the Zumiez South Stage, sorely missing former lead singer Craig Owens. The band played a fairly standard set that included “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek”, “The Undertaker’s Thirst For Revenge Is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)”, and “Is it a Progression if a Cannibal Uses a Fork”, and “The Words Best Friend Become Redefined”, but replacement vocalist Brandon Bolmer lacks the vocal qualities that once made Chiodos an enjoyable listen. The songs hit hard, but Bolmer’s mix of high-pitched screaming and singing is far too unbalanced and lacking in melody. It doesn’t help, either, that Bolmer came in following the subpar Bone Palace Ballet, a collection of songs that hardly finds Chiodos at their best considering their much stronger back catalog.

Paramore

By 9:50PM the night was almost over and only one band remained: headlining act Paramore. The Tennessee five-piece opened with a lengthy introductory jam and then moved right into “Looking Up”, the first of seven songs from their excellent 2009 full-length, Brand New Eyes. Frontwoman Hayley Williams was extremely energetic, invoking the crowd to sing along to the big choruses of “That’s What You Get”. “Playing God” sounded great; the hooks on Williams’s lines “but the way I, way I see it” are amongst the band’s most catchy moments.

Paramore

The crunchy guitars of Josh Farro and Taylor York lead the way on “Pressure”, a fast-paced cut from the band’s 2005 debut, All We Know is Falling.”Turn it Off” and “The Only Exception” (the latter described by Williams as a love song) slowed the set down tremendously, but  “Whoa” — which Williams joked was written in just five minutes, due to its simplicity — once again found the frontwoman singing huge choruses and instructing the crowd to do the same.

Paramore

Bassist Jeremy Davis and drummer Zac Farro locked together for “crushcrushcrush”, a predictable yet excellent part of the band’s set. “Let the Flames Begin” received an extended outro, before the band closed out their set exclusively with Brand New Eyes material including hit singles “Ignorance”, “Careful”, and “Brick by Boring Brick”. “Where the Lines Overlap”, a song that begs for live treatment, sounded great and was dedicated to the Williams’s recently deceased grandmother.

Paramore

“Misery Business” went last in the evening as part of the band’s encore, no surprise to anyone who has seen the band perform since that single propelled Paramore into the mainstream world-wide. A big surprise, however, came when Williams invited a random girl from the crowd onstage to sing the song’s bridge, taking a play right out of the playbook of local hero Bruce Springsteen (who often invites random kids onstage to sing “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”. The biggest surprise of all, though, came when the girl invited on stage absolutely nailed the vocal part and continued to sing with Williams side by side until the song’s end. With the exception of “Decode” (possibly the band’s weakest song to date), set selection was flawless:

Looking Up
That’s What You Get
Playing God
Pressure
For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
Turn It Off
The Only Exception
Whoa
crushcrushcrush
Let the Flames Begin
Ignorance
Where the Lines Overlap
Careful
Brick by Boring Brick
Decode
Misery Business

Paramore

With their seventy-minute setlist, Paramore did their headlining duties by trumping every other band through the day: Williams sounded as strong as ever through the set’s duration, evidence that her time with a vocal coach is paying off tremendously. Instrumentally, the band was as close to perfect as possible, even while running around the stage and doing flips off of each other. Paramore was genuinely appreciative of their chance to headline Bamboozle, moving up from an unknown side-stage act just a few years earlier.

Though Saturday featured a plethora of throwaway acts (including Drake, Kesha, Four Year Strong, Escape the Fate, Angels and Airwaves, VersaEmerge, The Maine, The Ready Set, The Word Alive, Of Mice and Men, Asking Alexandria, Attack Attack, Emmure, and I Set My Friends on Fire to name just a few), there were more than enough gems in the rough to completely occupy the festival’s ten hours. Even rushing from stage to stage for most of the evening, I still missed a few promising acts such as Hanson, The Bled, and Protest the Hero.

The top performances of Saturday’s Bamboozle belong to Paramore and Something Corporate, two bands who are clearly leaps and bounds ahead of their peers in terms of stage presence and live execution.

All photographs by the excellent Dan Gonyea.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.