Fine Line (Yuck) April 17, 2010
No, i didn’t make a set list for this one either. I didn’t make that potential resolution until yesterday (whenever yesterday is). And although i’ve listened to Shame, Shame and (especially) Fate a bunch of times, I’ve long since quit scouring the liner notes and I don’t really look at song titles. So even if I was writing down songs, my list would pretty much consist of 1) that black eye song, 2) the doot doot song, 3) song four on the 5th album, or the songs that sounds just like the beatles or the band (25% of their work). So i dunno what good that list would be to anyone. However, my intrepid concert companion (who is much more detail oriented that i) assures me that they played all of Shame, Shame (including two of the three bonus tracks floating around, “What a Strange Day” and “On Man”) and a bunch of Fate (still my favorite), with perhaps 3 songs from the various previous 3 albums (I recognized one of the We All Belong tunes….song 5?).
List be damned anyway, all I need to say was that this was a smoking good show!
Love the band on album (or cd or download per your particular wont), but live, they are way more muscular sounding, rocking the heck out of the somewhat low key recorded tunes (especially on the Shame, Shame tracks). As I’ve probably mentioned, I’m not really fond of the audience singalong, but Toby Leaman come out of the gate a little hoarse. The audience participation in this case was a pleasant boost to his vocals. (his vox improved during the course of the show.) I’m a little more partial to the vocals of co-singer Scott McMicken, who always sounds a little wobbly and rough around the edges (band reference for sure), but his vocals were stellar throughout. And of course, being the seasoned road warriors they are, the band sounded fantastic. Lots of dynamics, nice musical touches, and even though the production backed off the layered sound of the recordings, there was texture aplenty to be heard. The band were great showmen, very energetic (the term precise pogoing comes to mind), charismatic (not thinking the lead singer is as attractive as someone else does, but he’s definitely attention grabbing) and powerful with lots of interplay between band members. They are almost a jam band that doesn’t bore the audience with a lot of long and pointless jams (yes, DMB, I mean you and your anonymous spawn) And entertain the audience they definitely did. They had the crowd going from the first track (song on from the new one) and pretty much didn’t let up through the end of the extended encore. And I didn’t get nearly trampled during the encore (hooray).
Great show, definitely a band to catch (and I’m kicking myself for not catching the record store day show)
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Definitely at least two from "We All Belong:" "Girl" and "Worst Trip." And this was one time where, oddly, the show made me like the CD a bit less. I think that'll go away as the show fades in memory but, for instance, "Later" (song 6 on "S,S") was so insanely vivid live that the recorded version, which I already liked a lot, doesn't quite measure up.
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