Sarahindie

There’s something pleasingly workmanlike about catalog shows, where a band just powers through an album. They’re here to play the songs you already love. No surprises. MCS goes the extra mile and their posted setlist includes the times the first and second records are starting in case you hate one of them.

The band is finishing a tour of doubleheaders, playing their first two songs on the first night and their third and fourth on the second night. I have come to Detroit for both.

Night One:
This venue, Saint Andrew’s, is super weird. It was once a church, and then it was a techno dance club? And now it’s a rock venue seating about five hundred. MCS fans tend to be pretty chill, so the floor before the show is a lot of polite excuse mes and I’m sorrys. I love the midwest. Also, the entire VIP section is two parents and their eighteen month old, who is fucking jamming.

The band sounds much better than I would after a month of double-headers. Plus, this is their third show of the day, after opening for Yo Gabba Gabba twice today. But they still have the energy and voice for this. Impressive.

I Am the Movie:
Somewhere around the middle of the album, Justin says that people have been asking him to talk more about the albums. He mumbles about his favorite high school band and then doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the first album. This is the quietest he’s ever been.

Intermission: The music before the show was all Counting Crows (August and Everything After, I believe). Now, it’s croony big band stuff.

Commit This Memory;
Man, it is good that Tony Thaxton plays with a click track, because this audience cannot keep time. Everytime we start clapping, we speed up. Takes maybe four measures for us to be totally off.

After “Everything Is Alright”, Justin tells us at that at the Yo Gabba Gabba shows, he changed the lyrics to “Give me a high five / cause I think you’re awesome / we like the same things / that’s why we’re friends.”

Oh, the baby is gone. I guess IAM was her album. I get it.

Some bros in the balcony keep throwing beers at their buddies on the floor. Unfortunately, between them is me.

During “Feel Like Rain,” Josh makes Justin stop the song because it looks like a kid is down in the pit. Turns out they just lost something, but it gives Justin a chance to give us his pit mom, “Be good to each other” lecture.

Hey! Someone actually bought the hundred dollar vinyl figurine available at merch.

Good news! Beer in your eye doesn’t sting. It’s just irritating and pretty drying and distracts you from “Better Open the Door.”

Night Two
I Was Totally Destroying It:

We arrive in time to see the opener, who I think said they’re from California. They’re five cheery twenty-somethings, definitely adhering to the MCS ethos of being happy with your own oddness. They’re still a little awkward and shy, but I like them. Also, their entry music is “The Final Countdown.”

Tonight, we’re sitting up in the balcony, where beer is less likely to hurt me. There is a “railing”, but I use that term extremely loosely. It’s a pipe about hip height and a sharp lip to keep us from sitting off the edge. When combined with the really tall stools, sitting up here feels really precarious. I’m wishing I wasn’t wearing slip-ons. I might lose one over the edge. For fifteen extra dollars, I was hoping for more than a feeling of dread. I thought there’d at least be a bar up here.

Intermission: I look up when “Friends in Low Places” starts and am somehow unsuprised when the whole venue bursts out with the chorus.

Even If It Kills Me:
A mosh pit opens immediately (this album is front-loaded with rockin’ singles) and it is without question the most densely packed put I’ve ever seen. No one is getting out of their way.

I will always love how no one is ever singing along as fanatically or dancing as hard as keyboardist Jesse Johnson. He’s their biggest fan.

That awesome baby is back. Turns out that she’s TThax’s niece.

I’ve been very kind about clothing,  but there’s a girl here dressed like she just came from ballet practice at the American Apparel store. Huge headband, leotard, tights, long flowing white elastic skirt, bootines. Looks kind of ridiculous.

For “The Conversation,” it’s just Justin singing and Matt on keys. While Matt sets up, Justin tries to host a disastrous q&a period. Without his guitar, Justin has no idea what to do with his hands. Precious.

Intermission:
The intermission reveals one of my favorite things about the midwest and this sober, grown folks crowd in particular. Instead of staying pressed up against the stage, everyone has dispersed to get drinks and chat and pee. Your spot is not life or death, the room isn’t full, and beer trumps all. We’ll all be able to see the next album.

My Dinosaur Life:
By the third song, “Her Words Destroyed My Planet”, the mosh pit has expanded to encompass the whole middle of the crowd and everyone else is pogoing. It looks like the toga party in Animal House. But me, I’m fascinated by the guy next to me who was losing his mind during the last album and now is just staring stonily at the stage.

Apparently Justin was tired last night, because now he’s talking fast enough that it’s hard to follow. He reveals that a line in “&%$*&%” was stolen from The Hudsucker Proxy. I love this band for their dorky, wide-ranging references. Also referenced on this album: The Ocarina of Time & Veronica Mars.

We arrive as the Say Anything fans are streaming out. This is the problem with double (or, in this case, triple) headliners.  

There is a couple here that must be seen to be believed. She’s got dreaded buns that go out a foot in either direction. He’s covered in char like he escaped a fire and came straight here. 

I am having a strange realization about Motion City fans. They’re completely unlike any other New York fans (well, the non-teen ones); they prefer large quantities of cheap beer, dancing alone like spazzes (even the girls!), they’re overwhelmingly white, there’s a lot of plaid, half of the guys look like Brian Posehn, and, here’s the kicker, they’re roughly 24-32. Which means that they were probably in college when they discovered MCS, probably at a midwest school where there is nothing to do but drink cheap beer and listen to dude music at frat parties. (Mom, I didn’t do either of those things. Beer is gross.) These aren’t native New Yorkers, nor the pretentious hipsters who like to refer to NYC as if they’ve always been here. Like me, this is transplants. This may not may be my favorite band of all time, but maybe I’m home. 

To further my theory, let’s break down the members of MCS as archetypes of my rural Illinois liberal arts college: Keyboardist Jesse Johnson is the frat guy who I used to see streaking drunkenly in the snow and who got so drunk he passed out on the regular. Josh Cain, rhythm guitar, is the asshole guy in my program who opposed everything I said in every class. Lead singer Justin Pierre wandered into my dorm room my freshman year (possibly he was dating the bohemian girl down the hall) and was so quirky and deep that we had to be friends. Bassist and musical genius Matt Taylor is the boy that every girl in the program was in love with, because he was cute and sweet and thoughtful, but he had a girlfriend back home he was really faithful to and the girls from the bitter big cities thought he was gay. (Girlfriend was real. They’ve got a loft in Minneapolis now.) And drummer Tony Thaxton was the secretly brilliant boy that was, in retrospect, my best friend in college. 

Oh, the show’s pretty good too. I think the Best Buy (formerly the Nokia) is exactly the right size stage and venue for them. There’s enough space for hardcore fans and casual ones (the one giant mosh pit at Irving Plaza last spring scared even me) and there’s enough room for the band to thrash around the stage without their lack of set pieces or lights making them look like stranded little islands in a giant dark sea (see also any band without set dressing at the Roseland).

Justin Pierre’s voice isn’t in the best nick (he didn’t sing at all at last night’s Boston show) and I’ve heard them play tighter but, like always, they’re having a great time, and that shit is infectious. PLUS, they play “Head Like a Hole” from their legendary Nine Inch Nails set during the encore. 

During the encore, someone throws a jockstrap on stage. That sums this up nicely.

If you are unfamiliar, the premise of Hoodwink, traditionally held the night before Bamboozle festivals, is that bands pick a favorite, different band, and play a set of their songs. I, who loves cover songs, love Hoodwink. Because some people (me) have real jobs, I missed the first few bands. I am told that Eye Alaska, who did the music of Kanye West, stagecrashed the set of The Summer Set, who were doing Taylor Swift. So Eye Alaska wins at life.

All the Day Holiday plays The Beach Boys: they have dressed in costume, which is adorable. Blue oxford shirts, black trousers, sunglasses, hair neatly combed. It almost makes up for the terrible sound mix. It’s about 80% too loud treble, underscored by just enough bass to rattle my ribcage. The really weakness in this set is their insistence on using as much falsetto as the original band. It takes a real man to admit that his falsetto isn’t ready for prime time. Also, thanks to this band’s popularity, this is the first time I’ve seen kids running and dancing wildly at the sound of the Beach Boys in … ever.

The Maine plays Everclear: From the first song, they are excellent. (To be fair, the source material is way easier.) But the Phoenix-based Maine has the right laid-back SoCal angst for this band’s repetoire.

Hmm, as they go on, it becomes apparent that they frontloaded the set with the songs they were good at. The lead singer’s grip on the lyrics collapses after the second song.

Say Anything plays The Misfits: Okay. Loud. Par for the course.

Motion City Soundtrack plays Nine Inch Nails: I suppose anyone who thought about it a moment would realize that MCS would be the best band at Hoodwink this year. They picked source material that was strong and adapted it to their strengths rather than trying to force themselves to be an electrometal band for a night. But it still shows a new side of them, which I think is the secret aim behind the Hoodwink concerts. This is awesome, hard as hell rock. Plus, they use their techs to their full ability, so at one point, there are seven guys playing on stage. Plus, no one except drummer Tony Thaxton seems to be the only one allowed to play just one instrument. It’s positively Arcade Fire. But it is amazingly worth it, if just for the three dueling synths + Moog closing of “Closer.”

The way frontman Justin Pierre throws himself around the stage, I think this might be the closest I ever coming to seeing Trent Reznor himself. It’s almost worth the horrible pain in my eardrums from the WAY TOO MANY amps.

When they start “Hurt”, there are at least a dozen real lighters in the air. That is more than I’ve seen at a show in at least ten years. Also, my favorite people here are3 the nice middle-aged mom with the string backpack and her husband, who is having a religious experience.

Andrew McMahon plays Bar Classics: He starts with a Dylan impression. Progresses to “Rocket Man,” a deep Simon & Garfunkel cut, and a quarter-speed version of MGMT’s “Kids.” Time to go home!

Okay, look kids, I’m gonna level with you. February is kicking my ass. I got a sinus infection, for starters, and the medication is making me hella loopy. I’ve been sick for about two weeks. I have all of these notes to share with you about Empires’ trip through the east coast, and that is forthcoming, but in the meantime, go buy their new awesome single, “Strangers” (or at least click over to listen to it). Their album, Bang, is going to be pretty epic. Then, as if that wasn’t hanging over me, I dragged myself out for the Motion City Soundtrack show only to promptly spill Robitussin on my trusty liveblogging phone and utterly destroy it. So that is lost to time. (Summary: like all MCS shows, Katie ended up Mom-ing a mosh pit. And they brought an a capella group from Williams College to sing one of their songs in the encore.)

So, Katie suggested that I do a sort of Motion City roundup with my thoughts on the show and their new album, My Dinosaur Life, and other stuff. But you guys, I am just barely managing to make myself meals at this point (lunch yesterday? half a bowl of Lucky Charms aka all the Lucky Charms we had left). So instead, I give you the things I was going to talk about.

1. Click the link above and go to Lala.com and listen to the most adorably geeky band in emodom. Their songs are angsty, yes, but also punk in a very Midwestern way and speaking to a life much closer to the one I’ve lived than the epic tales of betrayal and sluttiness shared by Fall Out Boy or Panic! at the Disco. These are songs about how you’ll totally give up your X-Box if that’s what it takes to bring her back, and who can’t relate to that? (Besides my mom.)
2. They did an Interface session at Spinner and it will give you a taste of them live and their intense adorability. They seem like the kind of dudes that would be in your after work beer aficionados club/D&D party.
3. They made the following video. They seem to think it sucks, but I do not. I think it will probably be my favorite video of the year, and it’s only February.