Concert Reviews

Alright, so here’s the concept – two guys with microphones go out on a stage yelling indistinctly for a little less than an hour with one of them occasionally providing a melody on a synthesizer. Believe it or not, they had all my attention. I couldn’t look away, I didn’t know what they would do next. By “them” I do mean Jordan Billie and Johnny Whitney, the principle vocalists. The screaming duo hails from the west coast but more specifically Seattle, where it seems like nothing has come out of since the grunge era in the early 90s.

Now, have I ever told you how much I hate co-headlined tours? Well, I hate them a lot, and lucky me this tour the Blood Brothers are on with …And You Will Know Us By Our Trail Of Dead happened to be one. One would think when two bands co-healine a tour that they would trade off who gets to close the show every night. Well in theory, probably, but for this tour the Blood Brothers are only set to close 3 dates out of the 40 that are scheduled.

Alright, now for the actual show… unless I am forgetting a show I went to over the summer, I don’t think I have been to the Avalon Ballroom since last year when I went to see Broken Social Scene and hence had forgotten how ENORMOUS the place is. nonetheless once the Blood Brothers took the stage the pit was packed. As expected they played mostly songs off their new album Young Machetes but to my surprise they also played quite a few songs off of Crimes including the first three tracks. I guess when your songs are mostly under 3 minutes you can play a lot of songs. The brothers kicked off the show with the first track off their new album “Set Fire to the Face on Fire” but it wasn’t until they played “Vital Beach” (one of my favorites off the new album) that the crowd really started getting into it. Whitney began warming up to the crowd at this point as well, starting by climbing on the Avalon’s notorious Lego block style speaker cabinets and then moving towards the front of the stage where he joined the crowd in singing along to “Trash Flavored Trash”. They ended up closing their set with one of their more epic songs off of Burn Piano Island, Burn entitled “The Shame”, watch the video below. After it was over I asked myself, would I see them again, to which I replied to myself, if they are headlining the show. The Blood Brothers are one of the most enthusiastic bands that I have seen on a big stage before and I would suggest everyone go out a catch them at your local venue.

The Shame

Posted By: ALEX

I’m going to start this review off by saying, I have never seen so many families at a concert before in my life, I’m talking moms, dads, children – literally the whole family. Did I feel out of place here? Did the Decemberists play all of the Crane Wife? Did they only play one song off Her Majesty? Has Colin Meloy become a rock star? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

The last time I saw the Decemberists was about a year ago at the Avalon and was blown away. First off they started the show by playing all of the Tain and hence the reason for my obsession and the reason I decided to go to this show. I have had bad experiences of seeing bands I like at larger venues and not enjoying it before, but for some reason I figured since the Decemberists are so theatrical to start with they would only use the larger stage to their advantage. I was wrong. There was no advantage to seeing them on a larger stage, only drawbacks. my only explanation is that the larger a stage is, the more distant the band members and thus the more spread out their energy is dispersed amongst this vast open space. Call me crazy, but I can’t think of any other reason why some of my favorite bands whom I’ve seen perform amazingly live before all of a sudden suck when they play at larger venues.

OK, now – let’s get down to the nitty gritty, the concert wasn’t all bad, just not as I had hoped. On a positive note, all of the songs were played very well, just as they sound on the album. I thought that “The Island, Come And See, The Landlord’s Daughter, You’ll Not Feel The Drowning” (yes the song is just as long as the title) was played masterfully, from the distorted guitar feedback intro all the way through the Who’s Next “Baba O’Reilly”esque keyboard breakdown. And of course Meloy made sure the crowd joined him in singing along to “After the bombs” exclaiming “This is Massachusetts, after all.” This was not the last reference to Boston being the birthplace of civil liberties when he attempted to re-enact the Boston Massacre midway through “A Cautionary Song” as seen below. What was gained in the recreation of the songs was lost in the enthusiasm of the band members as they played them. At one point during The Perfect Crime 2 (one of my least favorite songs off the new album) I could swear the bassist looked like he was pissed off. But it wasn’t just the bassist, on different songs throughout the set I would look over at various members of the band and it just seemed as if they were not having fun. Well, I hope this doesn’t change anyone’s opinion of the Decemberists because I would still consider them one of my favorites, and honestly, what other band do you need to have a dictionary on hand when you’re reading the liner notes along to a song.

Posted By: ALEX