Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Emo Concert Trip Report

I got to the show at the San Jose Event Center halfway through Thrice's set; I arrived at like 8:40 for a 7:30 show, but apparently I overestimated the amount of time that the crappy opening band (mewithoutYou) would be playing. Thrice was pretty cool, I don't know much of their music that wasn't on Vheissu but they put on a pretty good show for what I saw of it. They closed with "The Earth Will Shake" which is an awesome song.

Took like 30 mins to set up Brand New's set (long time imo). They open with "Not The Sun", which is kinda a weird choice as it's one of the worse songs on their new album, but ok. They then play "The Archer's Bows Are Breaking" (again, lesser quality), "You Won't Know", "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" (from last album), and "Sowing Season." It's around this point that I start to notice a lack of energy from both the band and the crowd; it's like the volume's only at "8" when it clearly should be at "11." Then Jesse (lead singer) randomly launches into emo acoustic mode and puts all of us to sleep with like 3-4 acoustic songs in a row: "Luca", "Handcuffs", "Play Crack the Sky" (from last album), and he finally breaks out of it with "Limousine." Then they finally get to some of the good songs from their new album and play "Millstone", "Degausser", and "Jesus Christ", at which point they exit the stage.

If you are a big emo fan, you may notice that they have not yet played "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows", and I'm fairly sure that song is the only reason why they even have millions of emo [censored] cutting themselves to their music across the nation to begin with. Furthermore, everyone in the crowd has been yelling at random intervals for them to play "Seventy Times 7" off their first CD, and given that they're halfway through their tour and residents of San Jose aren't particularly inventive, I'm inclined to think they've been hearing this for awhile. So, they couldn't possibly be done, right?

Yeah, here they come after a few mins, just the guitarist at first and he starts riffing and then the singer comes back and they all jam for a bit and...then they leave the stage again. And don't come back. HI GUYS, YOU'RE AN EMO BAND, TRY LEAVING THE JAM SESSION FOR PPL THAT ARE ACTUALLY TALENTED MUSICIANS. Not to mention that they don't even play two of their most popular songs and didn't play anything off their first CD (they only have three, I mean, it's not like their compendium of songs is so huge they have to ignore an album or two). Not to mention that crowd energy was totally lacking, and that in their heaviest songs (Degausser, Sowing Season, You Won't Know, the end of Luca) something just feels missing, and I'd almost rather be listening to it in my car.

Then I sat in my car for about 20 mins trapped by a car waiting in the aisle to get into the main road out because traffic was completely stuck. The car next to mine (with one empty space between us) had a couple cute-ish girls that may or may not have been in high school, and I had just about decided whether or not I was gonna to talk to them when traffic got moving again.

So yeah, disappointment. Also, lol emo high school kids, they're everywhere.