Show reviews usually bore me so while we were driving back from Charlotte last night I decided to start a series of posts simply titled “Show Journal.” Seems easy enough, some of the best ideas are. And the truth is that going to so many shows is why Scene SC has less posts than other blogs out there. Meredith and I go to tons of shows. We’re music fans first and we try to be supportive of our friends.
More often than not crazy things happen when we go to shows. We meet new people, fights break out, cars get towed and everyone knows about all of the female drama I have going on in my life. Welp, it’s all going to be recorded here. This is the official Scene SC journal. You can join in on our memories.
4/1/2011
Last night we drove to Charlotte to see Dashboard Confessional at Amos’ Southend, but we had a couple of detours before and after the show. On the drive up there we were talking about texting and driving which really bothers me. I don’t think it’s safe to text and drive, but I hate cops. I hate that they have another stupid reason to pull someone over. I’m awesome at texting and driving. I don’t even look at my keyboard when I type, but I also hold it at the top of my steering wheel. Now I can’t do that, I have to hold it in my lap and that’s just annoying. Whatever, a new invention always comes out to solve these problems. It’s like when you had to have that thing to open your beer can while you were driving and then they invented the pop top. Revolutionized drinking and driving.
So before we went to the Dashboard show we decided to stop in and see our friends in Sequoyah who were playing down the street at Tremont Music Hall. Let me tell you, that place has gone down hill. Amos’ and venues all over Charlotte have really taken the good shows from them. The dudes in Sequoyah were happy and surprised to see us. They’ve been out on the road for a month now, so to be back close to home and see familiar faces must have been great to them. We weren’t able to stay for long and had no plans of going in, but Justin was nice enough to put us on the list so we could check out Johnnie Matthews and Amber Joyner’s opening set. It was really great, and a lot better than the opening set we would have been seeing at Dashboard. We got a couple of free copies of Sequoyah’s new album Spells and went on our way. I opened mine up when I got home and was stoked to see I was in the thank you section. I really appreciate that and the album artwork is really awesome. Everyone should pick up a physical copy.
Onward to Dashboard we went. I feel like I should have been more excited about seeing Chris Carabba solo playing straight through Swiss Army Romance on the 10th anniversary Swiss Army Romance tour. We bought two tickets from Zander Aycock who posted on Facebook that he was trying to sell them. About 3-4 years ago at an outdoor concert in Rock Hill we saw Zander open up a set for our friends Stella By Starlight. We weren’t friends with him or anything, but we remembered him playing “Hands Down.” It was only fitting that we bought our DC ticket’s from him.
We missed Cory Branan’s set and it didn’t bother any of us at all. We just hung out outside while he played with Meredith’s two best friends Erin and Melissa. I’ve seen Cory Branan before. I have video to prove it. Luckily no one died during his set this time.
Once we went inside I went straight to the bar and got two beers. The line was long so I didn’t want to have to wait again. When you buy two beers at once, you should drink them one at a time. I learned the hard way, sipping out of both of them equally and having to double fist the entire time. I became startled at one point when I felt someone bump into me and then stare at me. I was like what is going on, but it was just Cayla Fralick and her huge crew of people. Meredith tried to stand as close as possible to Cayla the entire time so she would be near someone that could sing really well, because this Dashboard concert was one big sing along. Carabba seemed to have somewhat lost his voice. We all know it doesn’t have the best range and has “the voice of the people”, but tonight was a little less than stellar. His guitar tones were off a little too. Why switch to small bodied Martin’s when your sound was made on jumbo Gibson’s. It was still good. He played all the hits and all of Swiss Army Romance, so no one could complain too much.
Before driving back to Columbia we decided to drive up to see Octopus Jones and Seawolf Mutiny at The Evening Muse in NoDa. It was great seeing those guys and hanging out with the guys from Elonzo. We got there about half way through Seawolf’s set and stayed for a couple of songs of OJ before we decided we had to drive home.
We saw Dashboard in Raleigh a couple of years ago with Say Anything and it was one of the best shows I had ever been to.
