Dashboard Confessional - Live Review

Hey, I’m back!  Sorry for the long break between posts – I was sick, but am better now.  And I watched about 5 straight hours of The Man in the High Castle on Amazon, which I can report as a pretty good way to pass sick time.

Anyway, I did get to see Dashboard Confessional at the TLA about a week ago.  DC is an emo band, with both rocking tracks and little strumming acoustic songs.  They are good, but not incredible.  It was a show worth seeing, and they ran through a lot of their big-time “hits.” 

DC is out of Boca Raton, Florida and lead by Chris Carrabba.  (He also runs a chain of mediocre Italian restaurants under his surname.)  They are a four piece band and include Scott Schoenbeck on bass (good shots of him below), AJ Cheek on lead guitar and Ben Homola on the kit.  Just so you know, it's hard to get a good picture of the drummer, but I think I succeeded this time.  The band is well-rehearsed and obviously enjoy playing together. 

It was an interesting crowd.  I hadn’t been to a show that was majority female in a long time, but this one surely crossed the 50% threshold.  Seems like women don’t like punk and other crazed music as much as men.  Nonetheless, everyone had a good time. 

And everyone but me seemed to know the words to EVERY SONG.  In fact, there were a number of times when Chris would start the song, then keep playing and step away from the mic to allow the crowd to belt out the rest of the lyrics.  I’m not a big fan of that oft-used piece of stagecraft as I actually go to hear the musician sing his own songs, but it is interesting to see how many people have a lot of free time on their hands to memorize lyrics to about 20 songs.   

Two bands opened for DC, but they were so unmemorable that I can’t remember their names.  Sad but true.  I give them both an A for effort, however.  DC said that they were going to play a long set because they didn’t have another show the next day, but only played about 1.5 hours – that’s the opening set for Marah.  And that’s not very long given that they have 6 albums out, but it was fine with me.  I had to work the next day anyway.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the band.  As always, I fought hard for you so that I could get close to the band and capture the action.  You have to admit that the quality of the pictures is getting better (well, maybe you don’t have to admit that, but it would be nice to lie to my face if you see me). 

By the way, check out Chris's t-shirt.  Danzig!  Hahaha, is that a spoof on the crowd or what?  I used to work with a guy in Buffalo whose last name was Danzig, and I always thought of the heavy metal band by the same name whenever I was dealing with the dude.  The fun of rock 'n roll in the workplace, huh?

And with that, I’ll be back shortly with another review of a badass band, Cloud Nothings, at Union Transfer.  Plus much, much more.  Keep on checking – the kid is back!  Later, y’all.