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Bamboozle Day 2 @ East Rutherford 5/2/2010

May 2, 2010

Sunday concluded the weekend long Bamboozle festival; you can read about Saturday, Day 1, here.

All the Day Holiday

All the Day Holiday kicked things off just after noon with selections from The Things We’ve Grown to Love, the band’s stellar debut full-length released on Linc Star Records last year. Opening with the airy “Cheers (You Still Love Me)”, the four-piece explored intricate and spacious melodies but remained grounded by the rock-solid percussion of drummer Mark Ventura. The band’s soaring vocals were provided only by rhythm guitarist Daniel Simmons, who managed to sound not only pitch-perfect throughout the set but also enormous — it’s hard to believe no one else is contributing backing harmonies. “Cities” closed the band’s excellent set, and before the clock even struck 1PM the bar was already set high for remaining bands.

Cheers (You Still Love Me)
Autumn
Real Time
Greener
2000 Winters
Cities

Steel Train

New Jersey natives Steel Train took the Skate and Surf Stage next, though it was unfortunately difficult to hear the band for most of the set, making normally-solid songs such as “Firecrackers” and “Kill Monsters in the Rain” a chore to listen to. Even a cover of “Dancing in the Dark”, which should have been a great moment being performed right outside Giants Stadium (the de facto home of Bruce Springsteen) was tough to get into. The band closed with a brand new song from their upcoming album and failed to connect with the crowd during their thirty minute set.

(Unidentified song)
Turnpike Ghost
Firecrackers
Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen cover)
Alone on the Sea
Kill Monsters in the Rain
(New song)

fun.

Following Steel Train’s set, frontman Jack Antonoff raced to the Sony Stage to perform with his other band, fun. The six-piece began with “Walking the Dog” but didn’t fall into rhythm until their second song, “I Wanna Be the One”. Excellent harmonies anchored pop-masterpiece “All the Pretty Girls”; “Barlights” had the crowd singing along to the band’s bouncy beats. Frontman Nate Ruess gave one of the best performances of the entire weekend, but the band inexplicably cut their set short and closed with “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)”.

Walking the Dog
I Wanna Be the One
All the Pretty Girls
Barlights
At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)

MC Chris

While taking a break from the excessive heat, I caught geek-rapper MC Chris on the Zumiez South Stage. Aside from plugs about his association to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, MC Chris’s set included cuts across his decade-spanning discography including “Drinkin’ Blunts”, “Wiid is By My Side”, “Nrrrd Grrrl”, “006″, and “Fette’s Vette”. Certainly not an act to take seriously, the performance would have been much more enjoyable if the geek-rapper didn’t rely so heavily on sampling throughout his set — it wasn’t just choruses, even verses were piped in with MC Chris just rapping along with himself on tape.

Polar Bear Club

Upstate New York’s Polar Bear Club played at 2:45 on the side stage to a fairly small crowd. Frontman Jimmy Stadt poured his heart into the set, which drew across both of their full-length albums but focused primarily on Chasing Hamburg, the band’s sophomore effort released by Bridge Nine Records in 2009. Songs like “Another Night in the Rock”, “Boxes”, “Election Day”, and “Burned Out in a Jar” showcased the band’s blend of melodic hardcore and post-hardcore rock. “Living Saints”, the band’s latest single, finished Polar Bear Club’s enjoyable set.

Good Old War

Good Old War played next on the Zumiez North Stage, opening with “Window” from their 2008 debut, Only Way To Be Alone. “Weak Man” was well-performed, and “Breaking Down”, a rare cut found on a split with Cast Spells, was an interesting surprise. “Coney Island”, the band’s very first single, received deservedly roaring applause. Anchored by the band members’ excellent voices and complementing harmonies, Good Old War somehow manages to sound even better in a live environment than they do on their excellent studio output.

Good Old War

Guitarist Dan Schwartz switched between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar throughout the set; Tim Arnold’s keys and additional guitar fleshed out the surprisingly big sound the Philadelphia three-piece creates. Good Old War’s self-titled album, for sale in June, contributed three songs to the band’s solid eight-song setlist, including “My Own Sinking Ship”, which featured drummer Tim Arnold stepping out from behind the kit and playing accordion.

Window
Weak Man
Breaking Down
I Should Go
Looking for Shelter
Here Are the Problems
Coney Island
My Own Sinking Ship

Minus the Bear

Minus the Bear took the stage at 4:40PM, beginning with two cuts from 2007′s Planet of Ice: “Knights” and “Throwin’ Shapes”. “Pachuca Sunrise” was enjoyable, and Omni lead single “My Time” sounded great. Indeed, the Seattle five-piece sounded crisp and experienced during their seven-song setlist. Unfortunately, though, song selection left much to be desired with new, unreleased (and largely unheard) songs taking up about half of the band’s set time. Thankfully, the band dug back to their debut full-length (the exciting Highly Refined Pirates) to close their set with “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse”.

Knights
Throwin’ Shapes
Into the Mirror
Pachuca Sunrise
Hold Me Down
My Time
Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse

Motion City Soundtrack

Motion City Soundtrack‘s set began as it has since the release of the excellent My Dinosaur Life, with Justin Pierre reciting the album’s first lines: “It’s been a good year, a good new beginning / I’m through with the old school, so let’s commence the winning / I’ve been a good little worker bee / I deserve a gold star”, but on drummer Tony Thaxton’s cue the band quickly abandoned “Worker Bee” and cut straight into I am the Movie‘s “The Future Freaks Me Out”. The crowd was hardly phased by the transition and was actually quite ready to sing along to every word of the old favorite. “My Favorite Accident”, another song from the band’s quirky 2002 debut, quickly followed and Pierre had the crowd in his palm.

Motion City Soundtrack

Current-single “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” briefly slowed things down, but the song’s infectious chorus soon had the crowd bouncing around once again. Even at the band’s weakest moments — Even if it Kills Me cuts “This is for Real” and “Broken Heart” — Motion City Soundtrack still outperformed most of the day’s acts. At their best, such as on Commit This to Memory tracks “Attractive Today” and set-closer “Everything is Alright”, Motion City Soundtrack is punk-pop perfection.

Motion City Soundtrack

The Minnesota six-piece’s Moog-powered set flew by, even though the band performed for thirty-five minutes across ten songs. It was good to see newer songs like “A Lifeless Ordinary (Need a Little Help)” and “Disappear” making the cut, even if it meant pushing out former festival staples such as “Throwdown” and “Capital H”. Pierre was clearly losing his voice by the penultimate “L.G. Fuad”, but the band’s intimate connection with the crowd carried Motion City Soundtrack to the finish line.

The Future Freaks Me Out
My Favorite Accident
Her Words Destroyed My Planet
This is for Real
Attractive Today
A Lifeless Ordinary (Need a Little Help)
Broken Heart
Disappear
L.G. Fuad
Everything Is Alright

Mutemath

Louisiana’s Mutemath began with drummer Darren King duct-taping headphone monitors to his head, allowing him go rock out as hard as he wanted while still hearing the foldback. The tactic proved not to be strictly theatrical — on “The Nerve”, the first song from their latest effort, Armistice, King flailed around on the kit and barely kept the adhered headset in place. The album’s title track followed before Mutemath played a lengthy instrumental, “Reset”, from the band’s debut EP of that same name.

Mutemath

A plethora of instruments found their way into frontman Paul Meany’s hands, including a keytar and a homemade device known only as “The Atari”. Singles “Typical” and “Spotlight” were the biggest crowd pleasers, and the band wrapped things up with a fairly lengthy rendition of “Break the Same”.

The Nerve
Armistice
Reset
Typical
Spotlight
Break the Same

Piebald

To promote a series of reissues, Piebald reunited for Bamboozle to play all of their 2002 full-length, We Are the Only Friends We Have, unquestionably the band’s strongest album. “King of the Road” started the nostalgic trip down memory lane with frontman Travis Shettel recounting the band’s status circa 2002: “Andy went back to school, he got sick of Newbury Comics / Aaron still rides a lot, except now he’s just fatter / Alex took over for Alex Van Halen, after his major surgery / Jon, well, he got married to Laura and I teach their kid in first grade”. And with those opening lines Piebald was off to the races, attempting to fit the entire album into a brief time slot on the Zumiez North Stage.

Piebald

Spoiler alert, Piebald rolled through everything but “It’s Going to Get Worse Before it Gets Better” in front of an audience almost exclusively filled with fans old enough to legally consume alcohol — the first and only time such a crowd would assemble all weekend. Everyone pushed to the front for a chance to share the microphone on fan-favorites like “Just a Simple Plan” and “American Hearts”; The Hope Conspiracy’s Jim Carroll filled in on guitar for part of the set, allowing Shettel to leap into the crowd as necessary.

Piebald

By the time album-closer “Sex Sells and (Unfortunately) I’m Buying” ended, two things became readily apparent. It was obvious that Piebald was a fun, personal band that can put on an extremely high-energy and engaging performance. However, it was also clear that Piebald never again approached the high bar set with We Are the Only Friends We Have during the remainder of their career. This made the one-off Bamboozle set even sweeter: a great live band performing only their greatest material.

King of the Road
Just a Simple Plan
American Hearts
Long Nights
Fear and Loathing on Cape Cod
The Monkey Versus the Robot
Karate Chops for Everyone But Us
Rich People Can Breed
The Stalker
Look, I Just Don’t Like You
Sex Sells and (Unfortunately) I’m Buying

Kevin Devine

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band had the difficult task of following Piebald. “Cotton Crush” started things off on the right foot, and “Just Stay” finds Devine at his best, but the noisy noodling on tracks from his latest effort, Brother’s Blood, is just self-indulgent and largely unenjoyable. “Carnival” is too long, too unguided; “Another Bag of Bones” and “Brother’s Blood” would have been great in a more focused, even acoustic, attack. Devine routinely leaves his backing band behind, it’s unfortunate that this was not the case at Bamboozle: the singer-songwriter is one of the genre’s best, and he is a much better live act alone with his just his guitar.

Cotton Crush
I Could Be with Anyone
Carnival
Another Bag of Bones
Just Stay
Brother’s Blood

Girl Talk

On the opposite end of the parking lot, mashup artist Gregg Gillis — Girl Talk — was throwing a massive dance party. Seamlessly combining classic rock and modern pop hits, Girl Talk had the entire Sony Stage singing and dancing for forty minutes. Not content with spinning just his records, Girl Talk’s live show is a mash of the familiar tunes found on his albums and also a ton of other radio favorites. Girl Talk executes like a veteran DJ, feeling the crowd and adjusting the mixes appropriately, all while inviting dozens of fans on stage with him to dance along and, interestingly, to fire toilet paper into the crowd. Pool toys and other inflatable devices were launched into the audience near the set’s end, and, after forty minutes of nonstop dancing, grinding, and crowd-surfing, the general consensus was exhaustion — and a desire for much, much more.

Weezer

Following a set by MGMT, Weezer closed out the Bamboozle weekend. The hard-hitting “Hash Pipe” went first, followed by the comedic yet ridiculously catchy “Troublemaker”. Frontman Rivers Cuomo was genuinely entertaining through the entire set, even running through the crowd and high-fiving fans before climbing up the soundtent rafters behind the crowd. Weezer’s world-wide tour experience shows: the band understands how to make going to a concert a truly enjoyable experience.

Weezer

Two cuts from the band’s masterpiece, 1994′s “blue album”, went back to back: surprise radio-hit “Undone – The Sweater Song” received adlibbed interludes; “Surf Wax America” is an an absolute blast in a live environment. When the band moved into their newer material they did so with grace, selecting only the strongest cuts such as “Let It All Hang Out”. While the band’s newer material is not quite up to the standards set with albums like Pinkerton, it is quite enjoyable in concert.

Weezer

“Dope Nose”, from the criminally under-appreciated Maladroit, was an awesome surprise; bassist Scott Shriner provided lead vocals on the rare cut. “Why Bother?”, another rare song, also made the setlist with guitarist Brian Bell singing instead of Cuomo. “Say It Ain’t So” was absolutely massive and received an enormous applause from the crowd. “Can’t Stop Partying” wonderfully mocked the current auto-tune/dance genre. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” is the best song Weezer has written in five years and was one of the night’s highlights.

Weezer

Things wrapped up with a great performance of “My Name is Jonas” and a crowd singalong to “Beverly Hills”. The band returned for their first encore with riffs of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”, and “Pork and Beans” was solid, but a shaky cover of MGMT’s “Kids” (with parts of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”) dented an otherwise top-notch set. MGMT had just performed the song an hour earlier — did it need another treatment?

Weezer

The second encore began with Cuomo looping parts of “Island in the Sun” together and performing the song — drum, bass, and guitars included — by himself until the chorus. It’s definitely a strange way to perform the song, but it offered the crowd a different take on a decade-old song. Weezer closed the set properly by reaching back into their 1994 debut and tearing through “Buddy Holly”.

Hash Pipe
Troublemaker
Undone – The Sweater Song
Surf Wax America
Let It All Hang Out
Perfect Situation
Dope Nose
Say It Ain’t So
Can’t Stop Partying
Why Bother?
(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
My Name is Jonas
Beverly Hills
Pork and Beans
Kids (MGMT cover)
Island in the Sun
Buddy Holly

Weezer finished the Bamboozle festival on a high note, leaving everyone excited for the possibilities of next year’s lineup. A reunion set from Piebald in addition to superb sets from Motion City Soundtrack, Good Old War, All the Day Holiday, and Girl Talk were great parts of the day. I unfortunately missed MGMT, The Dear Hunter, and Moving Mountains — evidence of the number of quality bands playing Sunday afternoon. As the parking lot emptied, it was evident that it is hard to find a better two-day experience on the east coast for contemporary punk and indie influenced rock and roll.

All photographs by the excellent Dan Gonyea.

2 Comments | All the Day Holiday, Bamboozle, East Rutherford, Fun, Giants Stadium, Girl Talk, Good Old War, Kevin Devine, MC Chris, Minus the Bear, Motion City Soundtrack, Mutemath, New Jersey, Piebald, Polar Bear Club, Steel Train, Weezer | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Bamboozle Day 1 @ East Rutherford 5/1/2010

May 1, 2010

Now in its fifth year as a parking lot festival in swampy East Rutherford, New Jersey, Bamboozle remains as strong as ever. With a potent lineup featuring a slew of New Jersey natives, pop power-houses, and scene stalwarts, there is hardly a better weekend in New Jersey for fans of contemporary punk and indie influenced rock and roll. The weekend began on Saturday, May 1, around noon and concluded late Sunday evening.

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.

7 Comments | Against Me!, Bamboozle, Chiodos, East Rutherford, Giants Stadium, New Jersey, Paramore, Relient K, Saves the Day, Something Corporate, The Aquabats, The Pretty Reckless, Title Fight | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Warped Tour @ Oceanport 7/19

July 27, 2009

Warped Tour has gone through many incarnations since its creation in 1995. For the summer tour’s fifteenth birthday, creator Kevin Lyman toned things down–just one main stage and substantially fewer acts. Mainstage acts also now received forty minute setlists, an opportunity for many bands to play two or three more songs than in previous years. For New Jersey fans, the tour also shifted venues from the larger Englishtown Raceway to Monmouth Race Track.

Chiodos

Arriving at noon, I hurriedly searched for the inflatable set-times board. It turned out to be located near the mainstage, where I caught Chiodos. Known for their intense live performances, the Michigan five-piece sounded great but had unfortunately already played half of their first set. Luckily, I did catch two of the band’s best songs: “The Words ‘Best Friend’ Become Redefined” and “There’s No Penguins in Alaska”). Vocalist Craig Owens (pictured left in a Pi Beta Phi shirt–interestingly the letters of a national women’s fraternity) controlled the crowd with ease, encouraging enormous pits and even a wall of death. Even with some weaker cuts from Bone Palace Ballet making the setlist, Chiodos certainly sounded good.

Anti-Flag

Anti-Flag took the main stage at 1PM, opening with 2003′s “Turncoat”. The Pittsburgh punks played a set spanning their entire career, reaching back to their debut album with “You’ve Got To Die For The Government” but focusing primarily on songs from For Blood and Empire. The band spoke out against corporate bailouts, expressing disgust that blue-collar workers aren’t being directly assisted. Of course, the band’s spoken messages were echoed by their songs; “Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C. (Sheep in Shepherd’s Clothing)” from their latest album, The People of the Gun, addresses the issue of corporate control in America. The band’s the full set:

Turncoat
I’d Tell You But…
You’ve Got To Die For The Government
Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C. (Sheep in Shepherd’s Clothing)
The Smartest Bomb
One Trillion Dollars
Death Of A Nation
The Press Corpse
This Is The End (For You My Friend)
Should I Stay Or Should I Go (The Clash cover)
Cities Burn

Bayside

After Anti-Flag’s incredible performance, I rushed across the parking lot to catch Bayside. Unfortunately, the primary side stage was scheduled to slightly overlap with the mainstage and I only caught the last half of Bayside’s excellent performance. I did manage to get the get the setlist and it turned out to be a fairly predictable affair, though “Boy” from Shudder was noticeably absent (perhaps to make room for the somewhat rare “Existing In A Crisis (Evelyn)”). The full setlist:

Masterpiece
Carry On
Existing In A Crisis (Evelyn)
The Ghost of St. Valentine
The Walking Wounded
Duality
Montauk
Devotion and Desire

Senses Fail

While waiting to catch Streetlight Manifesto, I caught parts of The Devil Wears Prada–an Ohio six-piece putting on their take of a hardcore/metal hybrid immitation. Surprisingly, the effort wasn’t awful. Conversely, I also sat through Senses Fail at the Smart Punk Stage; the New Jersey quintet sounded awful. Part of this was due to the Smart Punk Stage’s ongoing sound problems all day, but a larger part can be attributed to band’s poor live show and incredibly weak catalog. Hardly memorable, much of the set blurred together like a bad night of drinking. The only bright spot during thirty minute performance was “Bite to Break Skin”, clearly one of the only decent cuts in the band’s discography since their 2002 From Depths to Dreams EP.

Streetlight Manifesto

Ska powerhouse Streetlight Manifesto took the Hurley.com Stage next, promptly removing the awful taste of Senses Fail from anyone’s mouth who might have been unlucky enough to sit through that set. Replacing frontman Tom Kalnoky’s guitar was a sling for his broken left arm, but the band nonetheless played a quality set from 2:45 to 3:15. Even without songs from the essential Keasbey Nights (written by Kalnoky’s former band Catch 22 but rerecorded by Streetlight Manifesto in 2006) , the band captured the crowd. Drawing heavily on Somewhere in the Between (including the band’s only single to date, “We Will Fall Together), Streetlight Manifesto sounded excellent. Unfortunately, Underoath was scheduled at the same time I missed the Christian metalcore group’s mainstage set.

Saosin

The next band I caught was California’s Saosin. Opening with “Seven Years”, it’s quite evident how, even five years since his departure, the band misses former vocalist Anthony Green–and not just on Green’s songs. Replacement Cove Reber is devoid of the energy and personality that elevated Saosin above their peers in 2003. In 2009, there are simply too many bands doing what Saosin does, yet better. The completely forgettable set consisted of three mediocore songs from the upcoming In Search of Solid Ground in addition a few of the stronger cuts from their debut EP (“Voices”, “Sleepers”).

Less Than Jake

I hurried over to the mainstage to see Less Than Jake, who came out to the traditional Star Wars theme. The band joined in on the song’s final moments before kicking into “Last One Out of Liberty City”. I caught a few more songs before heading to The AKAs tent to say hello to some friends, but the full set is as follows:

Last One Out Of Liberty City
Automatic
Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts
Ghosts Of You and Me
Sobriety Is A Serious Business And Business Ain’t So Good
Help Save The Youth Of America From Exploding
Never Going Back To New Jersey
Plastic Cup Politics
Science of Selling Yourself Short
Sugar In Your Gastank
Does The Lion City Still Roar?
Look What Happened
All My Best Friends are Metalheads

Gallows

Gallows was playing across the parking lot, and so we rushed to see the British hardcore punk outfit. Frontman Frank Carter took the band’s set to epic proportions, singing from the crowd the entire time. To be clear: to say he was singing from the crowd doesn’t mean he spent some time on the barricade, returning to the stage between songs. No, Carter was in the pit for the set’s duration, even starting the day’s biggest circle that would surround the stage’s sound tent. Gallows was loud, fast, and abrasive–and, as they put it, “sick of playing car parks” and Warped Tour dates.

The band’s passionate hardcore engaged the crowd, and even the band itself; midway through a sixty second song dedicated to “all the fake bands on this tour”, Carter threw the microphone and abruptly joined in on the giant circle pit. On a hot Sunday in New Jersey, with angst-filled youth and extreme energy, Gallows managed to top even the best of punk veterans and put on the best show of the day.

NOFX

Warped Tour veterans NOFX played next. Clearly drunk, frontman Fat Mike spent much of the set telling offensive jokes (“Arming The Proletariat With Potato Guns”) and stumbling through three minute punk songs. The band touched on classics such as “Linoleum” (1994) and “It’s My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite” (1998) and more recent cuts such as “We Called It America” from 2009′s Coaster. The band took stabs at everyone, including the fans (“Fuck Da Kids”) and even themselves for thirty minutes. “Eat the Meek” featured Fishbone’s Angelo Moore on saxophone and lead vocals. The full set:

Seeing Double At The Triple Rock
Murder the Gov’t
It’s My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite
Mattersville
Fuck Da Kids
Linoleum
Arming The Proletariat With Potato Guns
Louise
Eat The Meek
Don’t Call Me White
We Called It America
Franco Un-American
Whoops I Od’d

Before giving up the stage, Fat Mike joked “thanks for coming to see us…and Underoath”–a nod towards the feud between the two bands over Underoath’s Christian beliefs and prayer sessions. Each band also issued a limited edition tour shirt in response to the situation: NOFX’s “Noah FX” shirt, designed with Underoath’s signature miniscule (“Ø”; Underoath’s “Underoath Loves Fat Dinosaurs” shirt, with a dinosaur personified as Fat Mike.

Flogging Molly

I managed to catch the end of Alexisonfire (who sounded great) before Celtic-punks Flogging Molly took the mainstage and put on an excellent performance. Written in honor of frontman David King’s father, “What’s Left of the Flag” was dedicated to King’s mother, who turned 81 that day. The band’s performance drew a lot of other bands, including Anti-Flags Justin Sane who joined on stage and Gallows’s Carter, who–more appropriately–could be seen navigating the pits. The full set, which drew from each of the band’s full-length albums:

Paddy’s Lament
The Likes Of You Again
Requiem For A Dying Song
Selfish Man
Drunken Lullabies
Float
Devil’s Dance Floor
Salty Dog
What’s Left Of The Flag
Seven Deadly Sins

After Flogging Molly, I wandered around catching parts of some other bands, including A Skylit Drive (just one song, “Wires and the Concept of Breathing”) at the Smart Punk stage. I also listened to some of Boston’s Westbound Train, who played an appealing blend of ska and rock but ultimately fell victim to a scheduling conflict that pitted them against Bad Religion, the next and final band on my list.

Bad Religion

As the sun set on the mainstage at around 7PM, punk veterans Bad Religion started their set. The scene might have worked as a metaphor: the sun setting on the band after thirty years of touring and fourteen full-length albums. Indeed, it’s difficult to picture many of the bands on the 2009 Warped Tour existing without Bad Religion or their related projects (Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Dag Nasty,and Suicidal Tendencies–to name just a few). For Bad Religion, however, this was anything but goodbye. The band sounded angry and discontent with the modern world and modern music scene, and for forty minutes expressed these views through three-minute So-Cal flavored punk numbers:

Do What You Want
No Control
Social Suicide
Requiem For Dissent
Anesthesia
Generator
The Defense
I Want To Conquer The World
21st Century Digital Boy
Sorrow
Them and Us
Infected
American Jesus
Fuck Armageddon… This Is Hell

I left Monmouth Race Track after Bad Religion’s set, satisfied that I had done my best to see a large selection of quality bands during the eight-hour day. With few exceptions (Bayside, Underoath, Alexisonfire), scheduling conflicts were not a big issue–a nice benefit of the toned down Warped Tour. Even with a plethora of throwaway acts crowding the bill (including A Day to Remember, Attack Attack, Breath Carolina, Brokencyde, Dance Gavin Dance, Escape the Fate, Hit the Lights, I Set My Friends on Fire, Jeffree Stars, Meg and Dia, Millionaires, and The Maine), Warped Tour 2009 managed to impress thanks to give-it-all performances from new acts (Gallows) and veterans (Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, Anti-Flag) alike.

Photos by: Alexandra Tinder, Joshua Lowe, Danxcore, Dani Drainpipe

5 Comments | Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, Bayside, Chiodos, Flogging Molly, Gallows, Less Than Jake, Monmouth Race Track, New Jersey, NOFX, Oceanport, Saosin, Senses Fail, Streetlight Manifesto, Warped Tour | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Bamboozle Day 2 @ East Rutherford 5/3

June 22, 2009

Rain welcomed the second day of Bamboozle on Sunday, but it luckily never got worse than Friday’s Hoodwink downpour. A brief recap of the weekend so far, in case you missed it:

On Friday, the Hoodwink festival featured twenty bands performing full cover sets. Highlights included New Found Glory covering Green Day, Anti-Flag covering The Clash, and Push Play covering Muse.

Saturday–the first day of The Bamboozle–featured nearly one hundred bands; stellar reunion performances by The Get Up Kids and Edna’s Goldfish, in addition to great performances by Bayside and New Found Glory, set the bar high for Bamboozle Day 2.

Sunday began with a host of punk and hardcore acts on two neighboring sidestages. I caught performances by The Scandals and Outbreak before walking to another stage for Inward Eye, a Canadian trio that draws heavily from bands like The Who–a band they’ve actually toured with. Inward Eye sounded extremely tight acted quite grateful for the fairly small audience they drew.

I walked to the main stage area to catch another Canadian act, the four-piece Billy Talent. Always full of energy and quirky behavior from frontman Ben Kowalewicz, the band satisfied my hunger for new-school punk rock and rocked the packed crowd across seven songs. “Devil on My Shoulder”, from their upcoming Billy Talent III, sounded solid. Before the band finished, Kowalewicz announced that Billy Talent would be opening for Rancid and Rise Against in July in New York City, a show I am excited to attend. The full set:

Billy Talent

Devil in a Midnight Mass
Line and Sinker
This Suffering
Devil on My Shoulder
Try Honesty
Fallen Leaves
Red Flag

I wandered around a bit, passing The Sounds (who didn’t sound too impressive) and the pre-teen Jerzey Kids (who show promise as pop musicians). Arriving at the hardcore sidestages, I chatted with security about their relationship with various hardcore bands. It was certainly interesting to learn that most of the bouncers knew exactly what to expect from each of the bands, consulting the schedule to identify how difficult work would be for them at various times throughout the day. Upon informing the security team that A Day to Remember would be the day’s secret performer, a series of groans could be heard from the middle-aged bouncers. From working enough shows, each of the bouncers knew exactly what bands produced violent crowds.

This is Hell would be one of the groan-inducing bands for security. The Long Island hardcore act is loud, fast, and abrasive. Guitarist Rick Jimenez rarely let up over the band’s half-hour performance, and when he did, it was only to let bassist Johnny Moore step forward. Not to be confused with a plethora of metalcore and punk-pop styled bands marketed as “hardcore”, This is Hell left no doubt that they are a top-notch hardcore-punk band. Travis Reilly’s cry over Dennis Wilson’s raucous drums kept a tightly packed crowd moving for the set’s entire duration.

Australia’s Closure in Moscow played next on the adjacent stage. Drawing immediate comparison to Circa Survice, the band layers post-hardcore guitars over progressive-rock song-writing. Indeed, vocalist Chris De Cinque comes off as a tamer, less experienced Anthony Green; with more time in the role, De Cinque has potential to become one of the most prominent rock frontmen in the genre. With rock-solid drumming laying a concrete foundation for the guitars and bass, Closure in Moscow sounded great and likely picked up many new fans.

The band’s brightest moment came between songs, however, when De Cinque spoke on behalf of the band denouncing the nearby Banana Derby. A racetrack for monkeys, it is embarrassing to know that the Banana Derby was allowed to exist at an event like The Bamboozle where animal rights are often a subject of attention. PETA was notably absent at the weekend, but it is hard to believe that the animal rights extremists are not aware of the Banana Derby; certainly they should be.

Silverstein

Even more impressive were the acts of two concerned concert-goers: a guy and girl who skipped seeing their favorite bands in order to peacefully protest the monkey races. With makeshift signs constructed on the spot, the two stood in front of the collapsible racetrack attempting to raise awareness of the gross acts. I spoke with the one of the protesters briefly and left contact information; inTuneMusic is very interested in interviewing these two individuals–if they are reading, please contact inTuneMusic! We would love to tell your story and spread awareness!

Next on the mainstage was another Canadian act, Silverstein. Guitarist Neil Boshart drives the band, allowing the quintet to break free from what could otherwise be a fairly generic post-hardcore sound. Sticking mostly to singles and a few cuts from their latest offering, A Shipwreck in the Sand, the band engaged the crowd for thirty minutes before closing with “Bleeds No More”.

All the Day Holiday

All the Day Holiday, a four-piece from Ohio, happened to be playing a side-stage as I wandered around the parking lot looking for the next band to check out. Drawing heavily from Sunny Day Real Estate, the band layers thick guitars with soaring pop melodies. The band’s familiar, yet strikingly fresh, sound grabbed my attention and kept me intrigued for the duration of the excellent set.

The Used played on the mainstage at 6:30. Not expecting much, I stood on the outskirts of the crowd to catch the Utah quartet. Even with exceedingly low expectations the band managed to disappoint. The setlist featured some of their stronger cuts (including a three song Taste Of Ink/All That I’ve Got/Buried Myself Alive medley), but the band sounded awful, largely due to frontman Bert McCracken’s awful performance. The full set:

The Used

Take It Away
Bird and the Worm
Hospital
Blood On My Hands
Medley
Pretty Handsome Awkward
Box Full of Sharp Objects

Not too far away on a nearby sidestage, Valencia were next on my list; due to the mainstage being backed up by about twenty minutes, I got a chance to catch a bulk of the pop-rockers’ set before heading to the obligatory Face to Face reunion performance. Valencia passed out branded balloons before the set; little touches like this go a long way in adding a pleasant ambiance to the band’s set–which was unfortunately heavy on We All Need a Reason to Believe, accounting for all but two of the songs (“3000 Miles” and closer “The Space Between”). The full set (acquired from a friend, as I left early to catch Face to Face):

Valencia

Holiday
Safe To Say
3000 Miles
Better Be Prepared
Where Did You Go?
The Good Life
The Space Between

Face to Face‘s performance on the mainstage marked their first time in the New York City area in nearly five years. The “punk” music scene was a different monster then–one of the biggest “punk”-styled bands in the world right now (My Chemical Romance) was their opening act in 2004. Now, in 2009, Face to Face returned to the scene to find a tiny crowd awaiting them; earlier pop acts, such as The Maine, outdrew Face to Face by an enormous amount. In a festival filled with auto-tune, vocoder, and boybands, there was hardly any country for these old men. Still, none of this stopped the California four-piece from giving their all through an explosive forty-five minute set. Side note, this may have been the first audience all day composed almost entirely of kids old enough to purchase alcohol.

One of my favorite live bands, Rise Against, was up immediately following Face to Face. On most nights, the band is excellent: frontman Tim McIlrath’s stage presence is demanding, and his voice is powerful. Unfortunately he sounded fairly weak at Bamboozle, and Rise Against didn’t live up to their incredibly high standards. Still, through the eleven-song setlist (which banked heavily on Appeal to Reason–nearly half of the set came from their latest effort), the band executed their music with precision, moving from radio-friendly (“Ready to Fall”) to acoustic (“Hero of War”) to brash (“State of the Union”) with ease:

Rise Against

Collapse (Post-Amerika)
Give It All
State Of The Union
Ready To Fall
Long Forgotten Sons
Re-Education (Through Labor)
Chamber The Cartridge
The Good Left Undone
Hero Of War
Audience Of One
Prayer Of The Refugee

The band announced that they would return to the area with punk veterans Rancid (and Billy Talent) in July, so hopefully McIlrath returns to form. With a stronger setlist and a tighter vocal performance, Rise Against could compete with any band in their genre for best live band. It’s just too bad that they didn’t showcase that side on a rainy Sunday night.

Taking Back Sunday, in contrast, sounded the best they ever have. Regularly a band that struggles through their live set, the Long Island five-piece (with an added sixth touring member as a third guitarist) was on point during their hour long Bamboozle performance. Opening with “You Know How I Do”, the band exploded out of the gate, stopping only to introduce songs from their latest full-length, New Again. Sadly, those new songs aren’t as good as their older material, so while the band is finally shaping up into a strong live act, the setlist is declining:

You Know How I Do
Error: Operator
Set Phasers to Stun
Carpathia
You’re So Last Summer
Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut from the Team)
New Again
Liar
Sink Into Me
A Decade Under the Influence
What’s It Feel Like to be a Ghost
MakeDamnSure

No Doubt closed The Bamboozle Weekend a little after 9PM Sunday night. Gwen Stefani’s solo career certainly improved her stage prescence; she moved and danced like the veteran pop star she is. I didn’t stay for the entire performance, but the full setlist follows:

No Doubt

Spiderwebs
Hella Good
Bathwater
Underneath It All
Excuse Me Mr.
Ex-Girlfriend
Simple Kind Of Life
Hey Baby
New
Different Kinds Of People
Running
Don’t Speak
It’s My Life
Just A Girl
Stand And Deliver
Sunday Morning

Like the previous day, Sunday’s Bamboozle featured a plethora of throwaway acts including, but most certainly not limited to Family Force 5, The Maine, Hollywood Undead, The Used, Tinted Windows, 3OH!3, A Day to Remember, Brokencyde, and Owl City. However, strong performances by some newcomers (Closure in Moscow, All the Day Holiday) and the reunion of one of the best 90s punk acts (Face to Face) made Bamboozle Sunday a great day, capping off an excellent weekend.

Valencia balloons

Photos by incredible photographers: Caroline Forest, angelxshoe, lullabysounds, n1njadrum, catchphrases, ilikehugs, waitingforconcerts, boycottlove, AlysonElizabeth, abearcostume, Shawna Adams, Amanda Courtemanche

4 Comments | All the Day Holiday, Bamboozle, Billy Talent, East Rutherford, Face to Face, Giants Stadium, Inward Eye, New Jersey, No Doubt, Rise Against, Silverstein, Taking Back Sunday, The Used, This is Hell, Valencia | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

Bamboozle Day 1 @ East Rutherford 5/2

June 9, 2009

With Cartel’s “Luckie Street” bouncing off the Giants Stadium parking deck walls, I walked with anticipation to the first day of The Bamboozle, returning to East Rutherford just hours after Hoodwink had ended. Arriving slightly late to the festival, I unfortunately missed The Cab (who surprised me with an impressive Queen cover-set last night) and The Ataris.

I did catch the tail end of Cartel‘s set, which included “Say Anything (Else)” into “Honestly”. Along with “Luckie Street”, these are three of Cartel’s bests songs, epitomizing the band’s penchant for punk-pop influenced pop-rock. Vocalist Will Pugh sounded great, and the guitars were bright and crisp. Although their sophomore full-length–a self-titled Dr. Pepper sponsored debacle–would indicate otherwise, Cartel can write tremendous hooks with songs begging to be played on a summer day. It was great to hear a nice selection of Chroma cuts during the brief time I caught the band.

Edna's Goldfish

The reunion performance of Edna’s Goldfish was next. The Long Island ska band hardly missed a beat, even if frontman Brian Diz was noticeably short of breath through most of the set; he joked that the entire band was out of shape from their decade-long hiatus. In a weekend that would be overrun with techno beats, auto-tune, and neon boy bands, Edna’s Goldfish was a nice glimpse into the pre-MySpace past. Songs including “I’m Your Destiny”, “Story”, “Avoiding the Swerve”, “This is Not Here”, “Invincible”, and “Veronica Sawyer” made up an excellent set.

Bayside

Opening with “Masterpiece”, Bayside sounded great. Sticking to mostly singles (such as The Walking Wounded‘s title track, the newer “Boy”, and the obligatory closer “Devotion and Desire”), Bayside played a predictable but enjoyable set. The band’s sound is clearly built for intimate clubs, but they always manage to sound great outdoors–a good thing, since the band tends to play summer festivals every year.

I wandered over to catch a bit of Bloodhound Gang who played essentials like “Fire Water Burn” and “The Bad Touch”. The Pennsylvania natives traded dares and Jackass-inspired acts (such as drinking vomit) throughout the set. Unfortunately, the mix was poor, and it was hard to make out anything being said throughout the set. I caught a bit of These Green Eyes; the band doesn’t do anything new or groundbreaking, but they were enjoyable enough to listen to while waiting in line for the restrooms.

I met up with my friends in Latin for Truth, a punk-pop/punk-hardcore hybrid band from Alabama. The band wasn’t billed for the weekend–they ventured all the way up to New Jersey just to promote their new record, a DIY tactic right out of the Lifetime playbook (a band who’s sound they attempt to channel on their debut, Eleven Eleven). The band actually suffered a bit of bad luck recently and totaled their van and all their gear; I’d encourage you help them out or at least check out their record if you’re into bands like Set Your Goals or Kid Dynamite.

Gavin Rossdale performed on the mainstage around 2PM. I walked over to find him covering a few cuts from his old bands Bush and Institute, in addition to his new solo material. The crowd clearly went for the Bush cuts; the full set:

Gavin Rossdale

Machinehead (Bush cover)
Frontline
Boombox [Institute]
Love Remains The Same
Everything Zen (Bush cover)
Adrenaline
This Is Happiness
The People That We Love (Bush cover)
Comedown (Bush cover)

Boys Like Girls took the opposite mainstage, amassing the biggest crowd thus far into the weekend. The band sounded spot-on, but their songs lack any punch; they are not a gripping live act and ultimately remained forgettable. Worse, the band stuck strictly to cuts from their lone album, a 2006 self-titled debut. Four years as a band, I expected to hear something new: the band’s excuse for their meager four song acoustic offering the night before was that they were too busy in the studio to learn any full-band cover songs. The band’s six-song Bamboozle set:

Boys Like Girls

Hero/Heroine
5 Minutes To Midnight
Dance Hall Drug
Heels Over Head
Thunder
The Great Escape

Stripping down from their International Superheroes of Hardcore outfits, New Found Glory topped Boys Like Girls’s crowd size, drawing most of the Bamboozle attendees for their 3PM set. At one point the band stopped to “Tweet”; interestingly, this was about the same time I was updating my own Bamboozle Twitter account. The band sounded great, playing obligatory singles (“Hit or Miss”, “All Downhill from Here”) and new songs from Not Without a Fight (“Don’t Let Her Pull You Down”, “Listen To My Friends”) before closing with the crowd-arousing fan-favorite from Sticks and Stones, “My Friends Over You”.

New Found Glory

Hit Or Miss
Understatement
Listen To My Friends
All Downhill From Here
Failure’s Not Flattering
Don’t Let Her Pull You Down
Sincerely, Me
Forget My Name
Kiss Me
Intro
My Friends Over You

Set Your Goals

New Found Glory tourmates Set Your Goals played on a sidestage across the lot. The thirty-minute Bamboozle set appeared to be my last chance to see a bulk of their excellent debut Mutiny, and I couldn’t miss this set. I’ve seen the California punk-pop band a few times, but never as themselves for a full set (caught them once performing The Movielife songs, once performing Dave Grohl songs, and once in part opening for Paramore). The band played well, tossing in “Goonies Never Say Die!” and a new song into the Mutiny-dominated setlist. Still, I was expecting the something more from the band. I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see them headline, because their Bamboozle set just didn’t click like I expected it to.

The Get Up Kids returned to New Jersey with a triumphant nine-song setlist celebrating the band’s entire career, digging back to 1996 with “Woodson”. The first crowd of the weekend not packed with girls still fighting to reach puberty (and a spot on the front rail), it was a nice change of pace to stand and enjoy the Kansas City Kids with a respectful audience. Vocalist Matt Pryor sounded tight, and the entire band clicked in a way that few of the weekend’s acts would match. In a catalog filled with incredible songs, the band managed to pick nice set of songs, although “Out of Reach”, “Overdue”, and “Campfire Kansas” seemed to be glaring omissions. The full set:

The Get Up Kids

Coming Clean
Action and Action
The One You Want
Holiday
Woodson
Mass Pike
I’m a Loner Dottie, A Rebel
Don’t Hate Me
Ten Minutes

I passed All Time Low and caught a bit of Parkway Drive. Night began to fall, so I decided to shop for some discount merchandise, always a highlight of the Bamboozle experience. The Eyeball Records tent had boxes of great shirts for just five dollars; I grabbed a rare Thursday (Bearfort) shirt and some New London Fire tees (what happened to that band?). I looked for United Nations merch with no luck.

Razia's Shadow as performed by Forgive Durden

At some point Journey joined the festival as a secret guest; I learned of this midway through their brief set, catching the mega-hit “Don’t Stop Believing”. With nothing else going on I walked to Razia’s Shadow as performed by Forgive Durden. I’m admittedly unfamiliar with the album, but the concept intrigued me. I sat down and caught the show, enjoying myself for the next hour as ringleader Thomas Dutton paraded guests onto the stage:

Greta Salpeter (The Hush Sound)
Bob Morris (The Hush Sound)
Dan Young (This Providence)
Casey Crescenzo (The Dear Hunter)
Fred Mascherino (The Color Fred)
Sierra Kusterbeck (VersaEmerge)
Dave Melillo (Cute is What We Aim For)

Dutton is working around the clock to promote his musical; community centers and schools can even perform Razia’s Shadow royalty-free by signing up here.

The final band Saturday was Fall Out Boy, who took the stage at 10PM with an elaborate setup. I stuck around for a few songs, but ultimately decided that Fall Out Boy is not a band with an extensive catalog of good songs. They have a few shining moments spread thin throughout their discography (“Dance, Dance” is likely the best song they’ve penned, and most of Infinity on High is fairly strong), but to stand through a twenty-song setlist seems somewhat unbearable. That’s not to say the band didn’t play well and sound tight; it’s clear they are a top-notch pop-rock act. The full set (with two covers):

Fall Out Boy

Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes
Thriller
A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me
Sugar, We’re Goin Down
I Don’t Care
I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me
This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race
Headfirst Slide Into Coopestown On A Bad Bet
What A Catch, Donnie
Coffee’s For Closers
Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy
She’s My Winona
Beat It (Michael Jackson cover)
America’s Suiteharts
Thnks Fr Th Mmrs
Tiffany Blews
Hey Ya (Outkast cover)
Dance, Dance
Saturday

Concluding the first day of Bamboozle, it was quite apparent than most of the bands performing were completely throwaway (a list that includes a barrage of auto-tuned atrocities and fad-act failures such as Cash Cash, Forever the Sickest Kids, Metro Station, We the Kings, Cobra Starship, Attack Attack, The Friday Night Boys, NeverShoutNever!, Shwayze, Asher Roth, and Sonny). Still, the festival managed to stay strong with two excellent reunion performances (Edna’s Goldfish and The Get Up Kids) and quality sets from some veterans (Bayside and New Found Glory).

More veterans, and some up-and-coming acts, would play on Sunday. That review is coming up next.

Photos by incredible photographers: angelxshoe, lullabysounds, n1njadrum, catchphrases, ilikehugs, waitingforconcerts, boycottlove

6 Comments | Bamboozle, Bayside, Bloodhound Gang, Boys Like Girls, Cartel, East Rutherford, Edna's Goldfish, Fall Out Boy, Forgive Durden, Gavin Rossdale, Giants Stadium, New Found Glory, New Jersey, Set Your Goals, The Get Up Kids | Permalink
Posted by Anthony Charles Ambrose

inTuneMusic

Bamboozle Day 2 @ East Rutherford 5/2/2010

Bamboozle Day 1 @ East Rutherford 5/1/2010

Warped Tour @ Oceanport 7/19

Bamboozle Day 2 @ East Rutherford 5/3

Bamboozle Day 1 @ East Rutherford 5/2

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