163.
Artist: Say Anything
Album: …Is A Real Boy
If my memory isn’t totally failing me, I have only seen Say Anything in concert one time. They toured with Saves The Day a few years back and I was on those tickets like white on rice. I had just really started getting into Saves The Day, and I LOVED …Is A Real Boy, so I was under the impression that this was a cant miss show.
I wish I would have missed it. Saves The Day were awesome, but I’d seen them before, and knew I’d see them again. Say Anything was just flat. I was very, very disappointed in their set, enough so that it tainted seeing Saves The Day. (Jason, I don’t know if you are still reading this at all, but I am pretty sure that you were at this show and that it was the first time I’d ever talked to you outside of Wawa.) Of course, though, Saves pulled the shit show out of the gutter, and when Kenny Vasoli from The Starting Line joined the boys on that stage, I had all but forgotten about how much I hated Max Bemis at that point.
I really was in love with this album. I think that I want to know your plans is a super sweet song, and I love that I can listen to Admit It!!! and laugh at myself, even if it is the hipster caricature of who I really am. I am aware of the fact that I fit into the hipster stereotype, and I’m mostly okay with that, because if anything is going to define me, I’m glad that it’s the music that I listen to, but I think that life is too short to take such nonsense so seriously, so if I’m going to be made fun of for going “analog baby, you’re so post modern” then by all means, have at it. Its not like Mr. Bemis doesn’t poke all sorts of fun at himself throughout the album.
About a month or so after this disappointing concert, my friend and I were lucky enough to, after waiting in line for hours and hours, score wristbands to get us into the myspace secret show that The Starting Line did at the stone pony up in Asbury Park. This actually ended up being the last time we saw TSL before they broke up, because while we were AT their show at Bamboozle the next day, it was the same set, and we both, along with about 150 other kids, fell asleep on the pavement outside Giants Stadium. Anyway, the show kicked ass because I don’t think TSL have ever failed to put on a stellar show, and afterwards we happened to catch Kenny outside. He needed a sharpie to sign posters, and Mandy had one for him, and then we got to talking, and the subject of that show a month or two prior came up.
“oh, yeah, that wasn’t a good night for Max. he was having a bad night that night.”
Somehow, that took away from how awful I had painted the picture in my mind. I mean, yeah, dude is a singer, and if hes out touring he should give the audience what they paid for, but I also know, as does anyone who knows anything about the band, that he suffers from some pretty serious depression issues and was going through a particularly rough patch during that point. Because of Kenny, I forgave that night, and even started listening to the band again. For the time in between these two shows, I was so angry with what had happened that I wouldn’t even listen to the CD.
I have one other story to tell regarding this band, although it doesn’t pertain to this album. There was a short while where I was kind of involved with this dude who, of course, turned out to be a total douchenugget, but at the time seemed sweet as pie. Around this same time, Wow, I Can Get Sexual, Too had just come out, and I thought it was the perfect ringtone for this asshat. Anyway, long story short, a whole bunch of us were sitting in Chic-fil-a grabbing dinner, and although it was dinner time and rather full of patrons, it was also rather quiet in the restaurant. It was DEFINITELY quiet enough that when he called me and my phone started singing “I called her on the phone and she touched herself, she touched herself, she touched herself” it made people look. Needless to say, that ringtone got changed soon after that incident.
No comments:
Post a Comment