Bayside / Whole Wheat Bread / Inamere / Avenue @ Montclair 9/28

On a cool evening in late September, I headed towards Montclair State University for a free show sponsored by Class One Concerts. The Garden State Parkway was ridiculously packed, however, and I ended up arriving much later than I intended. Inamere and Avenue opened the evening first, but I didn’t get there in time to catch them.

Though I missed the first two openers, I wasn’t lucky enough to also miss Whole Wheat Bread–a punk-pop band from Jacksonville. The act, which features three black guys in a standard punk fare, is atrocious; they help reinforce every negative stereotype about black rock musicians and play their ethnicity as a gimmick, even selling shirts that say “I Love Black People”. If the band didn’t focus so much on their own color of their skin and stuck to the music, maybe they’d have time to learn how to play a live show or write a tune.

Headliner Bayside was next, however, and they didn’t disappoint at all. Opening with 2005’s “Montauk”, the band didn’t stop for an hour and played selections from all four of their albums:

Masterpiece
Devotion and Desire
Montauk
Blame It On Bad Luck
Don’t Call Me Peanut
Megan (The Smoking Popes Cover)
The Walking Wounded
They’re Not Horses, They’re Unicorns
Duality
Carry On
Dear Your Holiness

The Smoking Popes cover was a nice acoustic break, and Anthony’s mostly-solo performance of “Don’t Call Me Peanut” was a good breather in between an otherwise completely rocking set.

I was glad to see the band play five songs from The Walking Wounded–easily the band’s best effort to date, but they need to start playing more. Songs like “I and I” and “Choice Hops and Bottled Self-Esteem” need to become staples to the live show. Old songs like “Masterpiece” were certainly well-received; Bayside, is, well, a cult, and their long-time fans always show up in droves ready to eat up anything from when the band was just playing basement shows in New York.

Bayside always had something to say regarding guitar solos–too many “scene” bands just can’t write one or simply omit–and their guitar romps translate spectacularly live. Jack O’Shea is an excellent guitarist, and I just can’t see the band without his signature licks. Of course vocalist Anthony Raneri is a solid frontman; he isn’t the best singer in a classical sense, but he’s one of the most passionate vocalists today, and you know his lyrics aren’t ever empty words, especially on tracks like “Blame It On Bad Luck”.

In the end, Bayside closed the evening with “Devotion and Desire”, perhaps the band’s signature song. The song encompasses Bayside: a simple yet solid guitar lick, desperate lyrics, a big chorus, and a burning guitar solo. When the band finally left the stage, the crowd (which featured little dancing and mostly attempts to get closer to Anthony) was completely satisfied, and I was no exception. Bayside put on a tremendous set for a New Jersey crowd that didn’t pay a dime to get in.

Motion City Soundtrack / Farewell / Eons @ NYC 9/18

MySpace.com hosts free shows from time to time across the country, and thankfully New York City’s Knitting Factory was chosen to host Motion City Soundtrack on the day Even If It Kills Me hit stores. I arrived early to ensure I’d get in (in fact, three hours before the first band took the stage) and grabbed one of the last wristbands available. The venue is tiny (the free posters handed out after the show were hand-numbered up to 450, though I suspect the venue’s size is closer to 250), and the sound is always superb.

Even with the intimate setting and strong acoustics, openers Eons were still anything but special. My friend described them as “awkward”, which is a kind way of explaining how terrible their performance was. The songs were weak and lacked any sort of lead guitar playing, despite having two guitarist on stage. The cheesy effects and terrible guitar tones, coupled with a very weak frontman, made this band a chore to listen to. Thankfully, though, they kept their set short and left the stage after about twenty minutes.

Farewell followed Eons; they can best be described as a typical, uninspired punk-pop/emocore blend band that can be lumped into any of a hundred other bands that combine “edgy” sound and dual vocals with a completely unnecessary synthesizer. Though much better than the first act, the band isn’t anything special or worth listening to.

All boredom from the previous bands was immediately erased when Motion City Soundtrack took the stage at nearly 10PM. The band wasted no time getting into Even If It Kills Me–something I’m happy about, since I’ve heard nearly every song from their first two albums more times that I can count–with “Fell In Love Without You”. In fact, nearly half the new album was showcased this evening, and the band played each song flawlessly, aside from the single “Broken Heart”, during which Justin Pierre botched a few lines. The band played a full seventeen-song set (not in order):

Throw Down
The Future Freaks Me Out
My Favorite Accident
Capital H
Attractive Today
Everything Is Alright
Make Out Kids
Time Turned Fragile
L.G. FUAD
Better Open The Door
Hold Me Down
Fell In Love Without You
This Is For Real
It Had To Be You
Broken Heart
Point Of Extinction
Antonia

Only four songs came from pre-2005, but at least dance-ready “Throwdown” was in the mix as the final song before the encore (which would feature Commit This To Memory kick-off track “Attractive Today” and the band’s essential “The Future Freaks Me Out”). While I’ll certainly miss some incredible songs from I Am The Movie, I’ve been lucky enough to hear them many times and it’s very refreshing to hear the new material.

Motion City Soundtrack goes on a two month tour between mid-October and mid-December, and I’ll definitely be seeing them once again at some point in November, as they continue to showcase why they are one of the top live acts in the game today.