Andy Gapin

I’m not going to go into too much detail, but over the weekend, I took a trip down to Baltimore for Insubordination Fest. It’s a pop punk fest that’s been going on for a few years now. Including the pre-show, it was three straight days of pop punk. It was way more awesome than it sounds, I swear.

I think the best band turned out to be The Copyrights, but Cloak/Dagger, House Boat, Lemuria, Dillinger 4, and Dear Landloard were really awesome as well. The Steinways were very good, but a bit messy. It was supposed to be their last show for real this time, so I’m glad that I got to see them since I never had before.

Anyway, I picked up two shirts while I was there…

Last night, I went to a mustache party that was pretty cool, but the more important part of this party was that it was also a show with some really great bands playing. The name of the place is The Updog, which, if you ask me, is great name for a venue. You have to figure that at least once a night, someone is going to have to ask “What’s updog?” Anyway, the opener was a band called Sugar Glyder from North Carolina. These guys were absolutely incredible and just inspired me to actually pay for MP3s for the first time ever. Off the top of my head, the quickest description that I can come up with is something like Placebo meets Laguardia, but I think I’m missing a third element there. I’ll have to think about this more.

The third band was a band called Risk Relay from New Brunswick. I actually didn’t know they were still a band. I don’t think I’ve heard them since they played the ZEN House years ago. They were great back then, but they were even better than I remember last night. They sound a bit like the Hot Snakes. And one other band that should be mentioned is my friend’s band, Terminal Reynaldo. Totally awesome band. It was actually my first time seeing them, but they have a great sound.

Anyway, on to last week’s top bands according to last.fm. As you can see, last week was a big Lawrence Arms week. Sometimes I just can’t get enough of that band.

• The Replacements – 109
• The Lawrence Arms – 103
• The Jealous Sound – 45
• Cheap Girls – 31
• Murder By Death – 20
• Sundownder – 19
• The Steinways – 16
• Thorns Of Life – 14
• The Promise Ring – 14
• The Paper Chase – 14
• Feist – 13
• Morrissey – 12
• Asobi Seksu – 12
• Lucero – 12
• Ted Leo And The Pharmacists – 11
• The Falcon – 11
• Matt & Kim – 11
• President – 10
• Coconut Records – 10
• Radiohead – 10
• William Elliott Witmore – 10
• Pravada – 10
• Whiskey & Co – 10
• Idlewild – 8
• Rivethead – 8

I’ve been talking a lot to my friends in New Brunswick who do basement shows these days about all the crap going on with the cops trying to stop them and it made me remember all the shows that I did with I was in college, so I dug up the list of bands that I booked years ago when I ran the ZEN House. It’s pretty interesting, actually. I really don’t even remember who half of these bands were and the shows that they played, but the ones that I do remember were pretty interesting.

One of the best shows that I did was actually the My Chemical Romance show. It was on Halloween night in 2002 and way before they were big at all. They had just gotten off the Plea For Peace tour and were incredibly nice…and cheap to book. Few other bands ever showed up earlier and with a better attitude than they did. They pretty much walked in and picked up a broom asking how they could help set up for the show. Even though I’ve never really been into their music, they played really well and stuck around for hours afterwards partying and drinking. Great dudes.

Many of these bands played multiple shows, but I always felt bad about the shows that I booked Del Cielo for. They were a cute little all-girl indie-rock band, but they always ended up playing with loud as hell hardcore and screamo bands. And they were always excited about it. They are definitely one of the reasons why I miss doing shows so much even to this day.

Maybe one day I’ll upload all the pictures from the shows, make an album, and post them, but for now,  here’s the list of all the bands…

Generally when a band does a tour where they play an older album in its entirety, it makes me feel like they know their best stuff was years ago and that they have finally realized their last couple of records have turned off their original fanbase. So playing the record that was responsible for most of their original fanbase always seems like nothing more than an attempt to get those fans back.

I really think that this is what Jimmy Eat World is doing with the Clarity x 10 Tour, but it was surprisingly awesome. I was pretty much expecting to be disappointed. So much so that I actually wrote half of a review yesterday before the show. You’ll never get to read it, but it did exist as a draft for a few hours. My biggest concern was that they were going to keep playing for an hour or so after Clarity, like Alkaline Trio did on the Godammit tour. They did not. They walked off stage right after Goodbye Sky Harbor and then came back to do a five or six song encore of mostly post-Clarity hits. They knew exactly when to call it a night and it never felt long at all. I would have like to have heard some stuff from Static Prevails, maybe some Call It In The Air, but I think the length of the set ended up being absolutely perfect.

The most shocking part of the night was that they played No Sensitivity, easily my favorite song by them. I couldn’t believe it. It’s not like it’s on an album or anything anyone would expect them to play these days. I don’t even think half the crowd had ever even heard it before. And the nailed it. It was amazing and it made my night.

As for Clarity, they pretty much played the entire thing perfectly. I was very impressed. And it didn’t get boring at any point either. The only complaint that I have is that they didn’t play all sixteen minutes of Goodbye Sky Harbor. They cut it down to about seven. Though, they did make up for it was some cool ass live looping. The shortened version was expected though since they had posted online that they weren’t going to.

Overall, I really liked the show a lot. It was done perfectly…except that they played The Middle. I hate that song, but it is arguably their biggest hit ever. And I could have done without the dude standing next to me singing louder than the Jim and Tom, but that’s not Jimmy Eat World’s fault. Speaking of singing though, I realized last night that of all the bands I like that have two singers and one of which is named Tom, Jimmy Eat World is the only one where I like Tom’s voice better. I wish he sang more.

I just got in from the Brian Fallon show at The Court Tavern in New Brunswick. As should be expected from any show at The Court, it started more than two hours late and didn’t end until around 1:30am. It’s kind of annoying when you were already sleepy before you even left you house to go out, but it was well worth it.

To be honest, I was really hoping that he was just going to play his own stuff (some of which is on his MySpace page) instead of a ton of Gaslight Anthem songs. This hope was not fulfilled, but I think I’m okay with that. The set was almost entirely all Gaslight Anthem songs played acoustically, most of which were newer songs from The ’59 Sound. However, the songs sounded absolutely amazing. They are still just great songs to listen to. It doesn’t matter if they are live or recorded,  with a full band or just acoustic. They are great. I can really appreciate that.

The only real negative thing that I have to say about Brian’s set tonight was his storytelling. I generally think that he is a really great storyteller through his songs, but in between when he is just bantering with the crowd, the stories are awful and aren’t even told well. At one point he was trying to tell some story about Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen that made very little sense. All I got from it was that The Boss has had sex with most 35-45 year old women from the Jersey Shore. He did tell one interesting story though about how after they played on Conan a few weeks ago a lot of their friends came up to him and said that he looked really nervous, to which he flat out replied that he looked nervous because he was flipping out about the fact that he had never been on TV before. I’d say that’s pretty understandable.

The two opening bands were half decent. The Royal Sons actually opened the Gaslight Anthem show a few weeks ago at The Court as well. They sounded slightly better this time around. I think that last show may have actually been their first. They have some good stuff going on, but they sound really sloppy still. Look out for these guys in about six months though after they play some more shows and tighten up a bit. I wish I had taken a picture of the guitarist’s beard to put up here, but I was too far to get a good shot with my phone. The thing was amazing. I completely have beard envy over it. The other opener was a band called Minnesotas Calling. I think they are just starting out as well. A little boring, but could have some potential.

Anyway, here are a few really crappy camera phone pictures…

While the word was going around that this was a secret show, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that it didn’t stay very much a secret. As with most shows at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, it was late to start and late to end, but since I only had a half day of work the next day, I won’t complain too much. In most ways, this was your typical New Brunswick show. A crowded, sweaty basement with all kinds of assholery and great music. There was a time in my life when I was used to this, but I find that the older I get, the less I feel like dealing with it. Kids crowdsurfing in a bar basement with a ceiling that is about eight feet high–that subsequently was partially pulled down–is not really that amusing to me anymore. Call me a dork, but I really just like to go and enjoy the bands without all the pushing around and roughness.

Still, Gaslight Anthem was amazing…as always. They just aren’t a band that is going to let you down. Whether it’s recorded or live, this band brings it every time. They play music that is just tons of fun live. There are plenty of singalongs and parts to get your finger pointing in and somehow, they always play all of the songs that you want to hear. In the end, I’d say that this show as a whole was barely worth it because of the New Brunswick factor, but I did kind of expect that, so I shouldn’t complain about that.

I guess I should also mention Let Me Run who were, as usual, very excellent.

It’s not even funny how insanely tight this band is live. When you play the music that they do, you have to be tight, but these guys take it to a whole new level. They’re also just a great band to see live all-around…except for when they decide to play for a hour and twenty minutes. Too long! I don’t have an attention span that can handle that! There are very few bands that I want to see play for more than 45 minutes and even though I really like Minus The Bear, they are not one of those bands. But they did play a couple new songs that were ridiculously good.

It’s kind of funny that I saw them at the same venue (Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ) almost exactly a year ago. I’d say that they’re performance was roughly the same, but that’s probably a good thing. The opening bands may or may not have been better though. I can’t decide. The Annuals had a few decent parts in some of their songs, but mostly, it was just kind of more going on than was necessary. Sylvie was a little better though.

EDIT: Wow, I forgot to title this post.

It’s not too often that a show happens with three bands that you’re excited to see, but a lineup of Against Me!, Ted Leo And The Pharmacists, and Future Of The Left is just way too good to pass up…even if it involves a trek to Philly for the only night of the tour that I could make.

We got there a little late so we only got to see the second half of Future Of The Left’s set, but what we did see was super awesome. Definitely worth some illegal driving to shorten the trip. I’m really glad that I at least got to see something…especially since I never got to see Mclusky when they were still together.

Ted Leo sounded really good, but I was a little distracted most of the time by some crazy high school girls doing some sort of newfangled snake-handling dance and a dude who was jumping up and down like a cheerleader on crack…or like my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend when the Giants won the Super Bowl this year. In fact, he may actually have been a cheerleader on crack at the time. However you want me to describe it, there was complete silliness going on. Ted Leo is always great live though. The last time I saw him/them was four years ago at CMJ. He played for well over an hour without boring me for a second and ended up causing me to miss the last train to back to Jersey. I just couldn’t bring myself to miss anything. He wasn’t quite on that level last night and he could have had a slightly better setlist, but it was very enjoyable.

Against Me! actually played a very odd and well-rounded set. For the past few times that I’ve seen them, the attitude has always seemed to be “screw the old stuff, we’re moving forward.” I liked that. Sure, I love their entire catalog, but I kind of liked that they were constantly pushing themselves forward and being consistent with that. Unfortunately, they went against this last night. Their set hit all of their albums almost equally…seemingly in blocks. They played five or six songs from each New Wave and Reinventing Axl Rose and a bunch from Searching For a Former Clarity and As The Eternal Cowboy. It was a good selection of songs including “Pretty Girls (The Mover),” which I’ve never seen them play, and “Disco Before The Breakdown.” I can’t complain about seeing them play these songs because there is very little in their catalog that I don’t love, but it was a little surprising.

My only real complaint of the night was the awful mixing for Against Me! They were really mixed awfully. James tends to project is voice a lot more so he needs to be mixed a little lower than Tom. And there wasn’t enough Warren, it was almost all guitar in the mix. Stupid Electric Factory.

Now if only I could remember how many times I’ve seen Against Me! Was this the ninth or tenth time? Hmmm…

I’ve never been into Death Cab For Cutie. I think it was late 1999 when I first heard them and thought that they were incredibly boring. They’re not bad. They are tight and the music doesn’t hurt to listen to. It’s just boring. I quickly wrote them off as such and from then on, I have been pretty biased any time I have heard them.

My girlfriend has been a big Death Cab fan for years so when we started becoming close friends even before we started dating, I knew that at some point this day would come. She always comes with me to see bands that she doesn’t like so it was only fair for me to go with her to see them last night in Atlantic City. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to stay awake. I even thought about bringing a pillow. I figured that maybe I could curl up in the corner somewhere and take a nap.

I think that I can count maybe five bands that I’d like to see play for more than an hour. Death Cab is not one of them so an almost hour and forty-five minute long set was a bit much for me. A five song encore? Yup, they thought that was a good idea. I disagreed. I don’t even like encores when bands I that I do like do them. I think it’s something that, as a society, we need to come together to end. We know you’re going to come back out and play a couple more songs. You know you’re going to come back out and play a couple more songs. The “suspense” doesn’t add anything. Just stay on stage, play the songs and then we can all go home. Am I the only one that thinks a planned encore completely defeats the purpose of what the encore was originally intended to be? Go ahead, look up the definition. Nothing about it being planned. It is supposed to be because of demand. And yes, there is usually a demand, but you can’t go ahead and plan for that! But enough of that, I’m not going to hold this against Death Cab, most bands that attract more than a hundred people to their shows tend to do encores and many of the bands I love do as well. So it wouldn’t be fair to fault Death Cab. Though I will fault them for playing FIVE songs during their encore.

Now, I’m going to take a slight turn here from where you probably think the rest of this is going. And I’ll remind you that this is all very hard for me to admit. I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong about factual information, but when it comes to admitting my opinions are wrong or that maybe I changed my mind, it takes a lot for me to do this.

Last night, Death Cab wasn’t horrible. They sounded really good and very tight. The way that a band that’s been playing for over ten years should sound live. I thought the first third or so of their set was pretty boring, but then they kind of turned it around in my eyes (ears) and got a little more interesting. I mean, part of it may have just been the flashing lights and the way that sounded very full, but I was able to enjoy it much more than I thought I could…with the exception of Ben Gibbard’s ugly face and almost completely failed attempts at humorful bantor. There was one gem in his bantor though. During some song, a girl was sitting on her boyfriend’s shoulders and making silly hand motions to the song. He totally called her out and basically made fun of her to her face. That was good. The rest of his bantor, not so much.

I wouldn’t say that I liked them per se, they’re still not really my thing, but I was able to enjoy at least a portion of their set. That took a lot for me to admit.

We missed the opening bands–I kind of wanted to see The Rosebuds too, but it didn’t happen–and got there in time to walk around the venue a bit and then grab a spot to watch from. The spot was a bit further back than I was hoping for, but we did get there pretty late so I wasn’t going to complain. I’d never been to Terminal 5 before, but I liked it. It seems like it’s in a weird location compared to where all of the other venues in NYC are, but it’s easy to get to. It’s a little bit of a bigger venue, with multiple levels, but you can’t really see much from the upper levels unless you’re up against the railing.

She And Him came out and Zooey looked absolutely beautiful. I mean, come on, I’m a bit biased here, but she looked great. More importantly though, her voice sounded amazing and M Ward and the touring band played extremely well. Everything sound very tight and right on.

They pretty much played everything from Volume One and didn’t leave much left for an encore so they came out with some new stuff for it. I really can’t complain about the set at all since they didn’t leave anything unplayed, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t really hoping for “Baby It’s Cold Outside”…even though it was the end of July and pretty hot out.