Less Than Jake / The Early November - live in Rochester (Cover Artwork)

Less Than Jake / The Early November

live in Rochester (2004)

live show


Whether you like them or not, you have to admit that Less than Jake puts on a good show.

I arrived slightly late to the show and missed most of Grover Dill, the opening band's set. From what I heard they were pretty solid, but nothing too creative musically. Overall I'd say they were a mediocre opening band.

The Reunion Show came on slightly after Grover Dill left the stage. I've seen them twice before and have never been too impressed. They have a new bassist since the last time I saw them, and he seemed like a huge dork. They played mostly new songs, which were very different from their older stuff, making their set very inconsistent. Nothing too special.

The Early November came on next. I've never liked the Early November, and they are a strange choice to go on tour with Less than Jake. Their set was pretty tight, and the stage presence was very good, but I just don't enjoy their music personally.

Finally, Less than Jake came onto the stage. They started off with Plastic Cup Politics from their latest album Anthem. I thought this was a weird choice for a opener, but it was great nonetheless because it's my favorite song off the album. Next, they played Last One Out of Liberty City followed by Johnny Quest. Everything was great. The vocals, drumming, and instruments were all tight. They proceeded to play the first two songs from Anthem, Welcome to the New South directly followed by the Ghosts of You and Me. The rest of their set was mainly comprised of Losing Streak material suprisingly including Happyman, 9th at Pine, Automatic, Sugar in your Gas Tank, Shindo, and Lockdown (which I've never heard them play). They even played Dopeman, but it wasn't that great live, and I don't understand why everyone always requests it. Other songs included the Science of Selling Yourself Short, Escape from the A-bomb House, Help Save the Youth of American from Exploding, All my Best Friends are Metalheads, Scott Farcas Takes it on the Chin, Anchor (which was awesome), Mr. Chevy Celebrity, and the Last hour of the last day of work (which was very suprising). Chris proceeded to play The Brightest Bulb has Burned Out by himself, and the rest joined in with Roger playing guitar and Buddy playing bass for Screws Fall Out. During this song, they seemed to really enjoy playing and the crowd in turn sang their guts out. Immediately after they left everyone starting chanting Less than Jake, and 2 minutes later they returned to stage to play Look What Happened and Gainesville Rock City for the encore.

Less than Jake's performance was amazing. The only flaws were their encore was way too predictable, and they didn't play Al's War, History of a Boring Town, or My own flag. Otherwise, I cannot understand why Less than Jake has been going on tour with such shitty bands lately - ie. Early November, Yellowcard, Good Charlotte, etc.. I wish they would tour with older bands, like the Bad Religion tour back in the day. Less than Jake's set still made up for it and certainly made the show worth the 18 bucks.