As I mentioned earlier, last night I headed over to The Paradise to see Dear Leader have their CD Release Party , which, as you know, is really just a concert where you can buy their CD. As such, I know own the CD. More on that later.
It all started off with a wonderful T ride from Davis, where I watched 6 Outbound trains go by, then an Inbound train zoom right by the platform, before finally, my chariot arrived. Oh, glorious T, it s no wonder everyone hates you! Further complicated by a 20 minute wait on Park Street, waiting for the B line to arrive, I finally got to The Paradise at about 9:15.
I met up with a couple of my friends and we headed in, making a stop before it got crowded to pick up the new CD.
The first band was . It s always a bit disorienting to walk into a venue and get slammed by huge waves of rock music coming from a guy dressed in a ruffled shirt and tight Freddy Mercury tights, and with the hair of the dude from The Darkness.
But, damn, did they rock the 50 people who showed up early enough to see them. I highly advise checking out Keep It Together on their Myspace page.
played second.
I d heard of them many times, but never actually heard them. The first half of their set was, sadly, a little boring. A little too mellow after Mohair had just napalmed the place with style and charm.
They finished up strong enough, and given that they re a local band that (like Dear Leader) features a member of the now defunct , they ve got a loyal following who seemed entertained.
Finally, took the stage. They started out with a bunch of tracks off the new album, including the fantabulous Nightmare Alleys (which I featured on my last podcast).
They mixed in some older songs, including Ready the Brave , which I hadn t heard them play in a little while. The band was completely on, the crowd was completely into it, and it was probably one of the more fun shows I ve been to in a while, with only one drunk person falling down near me. Sadly, however, as they finished the set, they had yet to play Monuments and Shrines which is a balls-out rocking song live (and on CD!
). Given how much energy it takes to sing it, I figured it was going to be a no show.
Oh, but I was wrong.
The band came out for an encore (naturally) and wrapped the show up with the kicking live version of A Nation Once Again and a really really good take on Monuments and Shrines .
I left with my ears ringing, my new CD, and a ride back to my car in Davis (since my friends are awesome).
But, Ryan, you might say, was it a good show?
Yes. Yes, it was.
After two listens, the new CD is also ridiculously awesotastic.
So go to Newbury Comics and buy The Alarmist from Dear Leader. It makes a great stocking stuffer. I ve also gotten a little motivation to hopefully throw together another podcast, probably focusing on the show (or maybe just a Dear Leader-centric one, to spread the love a little further).
Hopefully that will be coming tomorrow.
I d also love to add some pictures, except my camera takes awful pictures and no one has posted any pics on Flickr yet. But when someone does, I will find them.
Oh yes, I will find them.
In the meantime, here s a picture of Mohair from another show (thanks Flickr! and thanks nevbrown, who ever you might be):
In just a few hours, at , .
Awesome.
It s a CD release party for (which you can listen to ). I heartily recommend Nightmare Alleys , Monuments and Shrines , and Bleed , but the whole thing is really good.
Really good.
For a while now, I d been keeping in the back of my mind that was coming to on a Thursday night. I was all jazzed to see them, but I also knew that I might have a basketball game that night, when we d already be short players.
So I didn t buy a ticket ahead of time.
Thursday rolls around, my game is at 7pm, and the show is at 9pm (which means HD probably don t go on until 11:15 or so). I get out of work and fight traffic to get down to Waltham on time for the game.
It s the first game of the season, so it s always a bit of an adjustment to get back into the flow. I also have a tendency to be overly critical of my own play. However, I rocked.
Probably the best I ve played in a few years, which I think was directly related to the fact that the other team constantly kept throwing passes that I could just rip and start running the other way for easy hoops. So, it s probably a whole lot less my good than the other team s bad. But whatever.
I ll take what I can get.
After our victory (a narrow 1 point win because we were short players and played 4 on 5), I drove home and checked out the Great Scott website just to make sure the show wasn t sold out. Of course, they just can t tell me, so I call them and the fellow answering the phone is nice enough to let me know that they re definitely not sold out yet, but it looks like the crowd is starting to get there.
So I should hurry.
I hop into the shower and remember that I m out of shower wash or body wash or whatever you call it. So I squeeze out a couple of handfuls of the anti-bacterial hand soap that s on the bathroom sink and use that.
I ll smell like hand soap, but I ll be germ free. I throw on my rockin tee and my nerd glasses and get into the car, realizing that I ve yet to eat dinner and I m certainly not going to eat it at Great Scott. Needing money, I stop at Walgreen s to hit the ATM and grab some quick food.
I buy a fruit punch Gatorade, some weird caramel nut balance bar, and a bag of Jelly Bellys. Quite frankly, if I pass a bag of Jelly Bellys, I have to buy them.
Guzzling Gatorade and eating something that passes as chocolate, I head down Fresh Pond towards Soldiers Field Road.
My normal route takes me up Market St. then back down Cambridge St., but only because I ve never figured out which road crosses the two (I now know which one!
). I turn down Harvard Ave. for parking, before realizing I m about to park to go into Harpers Ferry.
It is just now, right about 9pm, that I realize I don t remember exactly where Great Scott is.
Making my life more ridiculous, it s at this moment that I crack open the bag of Jelly Bellys and pull out the first one which I get into my mouth only to realize it s . I hate plum.
Thankfully, I notice some people walking and realize that I m not insane and Great Scott is just another block down. I slide down, hang a left on Comm Ave., just hoping I can luck into a parking spot.
And I do. About a block from Great Scott. Things are looking up.
Haven t hit another plum bean and I found free parking in a great spot like a block away.
I head up to the door, walk in, pay for my ticket, and get a Sam Adams Octoberfest. It s a decent crowd, though when you re in Allston and school is in session, it s hard to gauge how many folks are there for the show versus how many just decided they wanted to hang out for the evening.
As I m looking around, Sean Nelson, the lead singer of Harvey Danger, walks by. He s not a small man. Probably 6 2 or 6 3 .
The opening band, , is just getting ready to start, and I find myself a nice spot on the wall where I can lean and not be too much in the way. Harris starts off and their guitarist closest to me is just all over the place and really fun to watch. As local bands go, these guys were pretty good.
They obviously have a little bit of a base, as they had some folks there singing along with them. They had one song, , that stuck in my head and could easily be on the radio. The rest of it still seemed a bit rough around the edges.
But, apparently they d had a shakeup in the band and people were playing different instruments. They seemed like nice guys, too. A pretty decent opener and the set break allowed me to go get another Octoberfest.
followed up Harris. They re out of St. Louis and they play music that I don t generally find enjoyable.
Except they rocked. They are an indie rock/pop/electronic band; it s not really my genre, so I wouldn t even know who to compare them to. And, quite frankly, if I heard that album, I d probably be pretty disinterested.
But they were just so fun on stage, bouncing around, bantering wittily ( We re halfway through the set. I m feeling pretty good: I only feel like we re a third of the way through ), and just having a good time. It was infectous.
If you re wondering, most reviews seem to compare the band to The Dismemberment Plan and as a punkier Hot Hot Heat. I ve sadly never heard the former, and can sort of see the latter comparison. Very sort of .
Smartly, I took a moment between songs to go grab another beer and hit the bathroom (except in reverse order). If you ve ever been to a show at a place like Great Scott or TT the Bear s, you know why.
When So Many Dynamos finished, things got crowded fast.
All of the folks who were only there to see Harvey Danger, sort of stormed to the front. I don t mind so much when it s people who seem to actually dig the band (in this case, it was mostly those type of fans). I do mind when it s people who ve heard one song and think that entitles them to push their way to the front.
Which always reminds me of the night at a Fountains of Wayne show when I saw two college aged girls try to push their way to the front, bitching at people left and right. One of them tried to push past the wrong people and got laid out (right in front of me!).
It made my night.
I digress.
I had my spot, had a beer, and was ready for .
I have a tendency to check out band sites before a show to get an idea of what the set might be like, and I d learned that the aforementioned Mr. Nelson had been having some throat/voice issues. As he took the stage, he acknowledged as much and said they were going to start out with a quieter song to get warmed up.
He breaks into Pike St./Park Slope , which is a fantastic song and helps to illustrate some of the, shall we say, verbose lyrics that Harvey Danger utilizes.
Maybe we could run away and start a little repertory moviehouse or something.
She said, sorry but I think you might be just projecting on to me.
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