So, I'm typing with frozen hands as I was just outside smoking with my brother. He came over and all we did was talk. I love that. I believe a relationship is strong when one can just get together with someone to talk. Of course smoking a pipe while doing that helps.
So, I'm home on break. This is the early break catch up report. I started off break by going out to Philly with Dwayne, Jordan, and Tara to see a hardcore show at the TLA. The band we wanted to see was mewithoutyou. It was a great show. Me without you was great but besides that I think the band that the crowd liked the least was my favorite and their favorite was my least. The first band was emery and was pretty good. They were just a good hardcore band. Things were nice and heavy. He screamed a lot of his lyrics. It was great. The guitar hits were big just like they should be and he even talked about Jesus in a very informed and nonoffensive way. He said, "I have to state that we believe in Jesus. It doesn't matter what you believe in, come talk to us and we can be friends no matter what." If you've never been to a Christian concert, this is an amazing statement. I'm not sure if he actually meant what he said but I thought it cool to profess one's faith but not demand that everyone else subscribe to it. So that was mature.
The second band (Watashiwa I think?) came out and the bas player had long blonde messed up hair and was wearing shorts. The drummer had slicked back black hair and he looked like he was right out of west side story except wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Then their first song sounded like they were the police. Then after the first song he mentioned they were from California. OOOHHHHhhhh! Then it made perfect sense. They were surfer dudes and out there I suppose the police are hard-core. But they were really good and the guys voice was great. They even covered message in a bottle. It was great.
The third band was my least favorite, Amberlin. I suppose they are pretty big because everyone liked them and cheered and sang along. But it was so goofy. Half of the song's choruses consisted of some kind of "oh oh oh oh oh" or "ah ah ah." It was so poppy and all of these hardcore kids thought they were so hardcore. Plus the guy had horrible mic technique and he kept wavering on and off the mic making it hard to here him. It was just too poppy to be at a hard core show. More poppy than the police band. And they weren't as tight as the other bands. Kind of boring and the front man seemed like he was full of himself. It seemed that way and I think that's something that's easy to tell. Have I mentioned that they were too poppy for the show? It just all plays into this whole idea that these bands are all like 25 year olds but their average concert attender is like 17. So they were loved because they were poppy and the kids like that. If they played real hardcore, I don't think they teeny boppers would have liked them.
Well, anyway then mewithoutyou came on. First off I have to say that their frontman is the most eccentric frontman I have ever seen in my life. They're music is really, really, tight hardcore rock with screamed poetry over top of it. It's not like the lyrics are just screamed because everything is more free flowing than that. It's really deep imagery in the poetry and the writer has a English degree in teaching so he knows how to write good poetry and he just screams it out over top this really good hardcore. So the band kind of does their thing and they aren't overly rocking out as far as thrashing around stage and what not but they get into it. The drummer, hmmm. Try to imagine a polar bear playing drums mixed with animal from the muppets and jack black all in one drummer. He was sweaty and had long hair down in his face and he gripped the drum sticks like they were little pencils. But he was so good. So watching him the whole time would have been a treat enough. Then the lead singer guy:
He did some of the normal hardcore-esque thing that lead guys do on the guitar hits and what not. But between the hits he was prancing around the stage with the most grace I saw all night long, nay, ever from a front man. It was nearly ballet like in quality. He would slow saunter up to the mic, grasp it and then scream his guts out. Sometimes he fell over on stage and would just lay their huddled over. A few times he in front of the drum riser (which seemed to be his "home base" for the show) where he would curl up and cover his head. He would lean on his guitar playing band mates sometimes nearly knocking them over or pulling the offstage. It was amazing. He really conveyed the emotion through his movements effectively as well as through his screaming. And what was more amazing about it was that you could ell that this is what he's normally like. You could tell that he wasn't fronting this at all. He's really just hat eccentric of a guy. It was such a great show to watch. And all of the music was just like it was on the album quality wise but they did expand and jam a bit on their songs. They even did some new ones which was cool.
So then we found dwaynes car after the show which had not been stolen and headed home. Then on Monday I drove out to Jen's and picked her up after some mac and cheese at her house, (which was pretty good, made by her mother) She stayed down here that night and we hung at ben's house, watched the Bourne identity (great movie). Then I took her back today and met 2 of her high school friends for lunch. Then I came home and watch American idol with the parents and then hung out with Ben.
So that's been the low down. I'm headed off to bed cause I'm tired and sleeping is a large part of what this break is supposed to be about.
