The Bamboozle

Day 2: live in Asbury Park (2005)

Brian Shultz

More bulleted bands for your reading pleasure. Though, if these bands were actually bulleted, I'm sure most of you would be pretty happy with that, too. Anyway…

• My first full set of the day was graced with a blistering set of melodic hardcore from Crime In Stereo. Energy-wise, the left stage guitarist certainly looked a bit hungover, but the rest of the band managed to fight through their noon set time and move around. The band didn't even have merch on them, partially due to a full-length they claimed was now out of print, if I'm not mistaken. And, despite the forthcoming release of their EP and their announcement they'd be hitting the studio in a week and a half to record their full-length for a rather big label I'm morally obligated to not tell you about just yet, the set was chock full of Explosives…-derived material, though I'm not complaining. They kicked things off with "Amsterdamned!," following the track up in no particular order with "Play It Loud, Fuckers," "What A Strange Turn Of Events," "Terribly Softly," "Here's To Things Gone Wrong," "Warning: Perfect Sideburns Do Not Make You Dangerous" ("a song about most of the people in this three-mile radius"), "If You Think We're Talking About You, We Are" ("another song about most of these people"), and "It Ain't All Hugs And Handshakes."
• Before doing my daily merch browsing of the upstairs, I caught the last 3 songs of the Say Anything set. Any illusive social anxiety problems Max Bemis has apparently do not play out on stage, as Bemis swayed obnoxiously with every sung syllable. He has this tendency of singing every line exactly not when the music dictates as on record, but it's a refreshing alternative regardless, and reminds one that this is the live setting, so audiences aren't always begging for perfect replications. The three songs in question were "The Futile," "Slowly Through A Vector," "Alive With The Glory Of Love," roughly in that order.
• "Bamboozle Unplugged" took place at the Paramount Theatre, which was a nicely ventilated indoor place with seats and bands playing slower, acoustic-ish songs. We caught a bit of John Rolston's set, which was basically the aforementioned description: mildly enjoyable singer/songwriter stuff.
• At the request of the girlfriend, we watched the full set from the Spill Canvas. For their slowly-crowding genre (that being mostly acoustic-based, midtempo songs of obvious subject matter), they aren't all that bad, and were pretty together on things here. They played "The Tide," "All Hail The Heartbreaker," and a bunch of new ones, one of which seemed pretty bitter as the singer says something along the lines of "you spiteful whore" in the chorus.
• Moneen ruled, basically. Every time I see the band perform "Start Angry…End Mad" (which admittingly is only three times now), it's the rough sum of watching a younger Bruce Willis crashing through the twelfth story window of an office building, a walk-off, World Series-winning home run, and being at the circus with an 8-year-old mindset, all in one. So when they opened the set with it here, it was sort of like they lost any chance for outdoing themselves later on. And of course, they didn't, but it was inherently enjoyable regardless. They followed it up with Are We Really Happy With Who We Are Right Now?'s title track, and closed with oldie "The Passing Of America." I don't remember much of what was in between, but I can assure you it was good.
• Over It wasn't too bad from what I saw. I only really remember them playing "Siren On The 101," but like on record it was irresistably catchy and they seemed tight.
• I overheard/watched Big D And The Kids Table's set as I "dined" on lunch (French fries and Slice). The crowd seemed really into it, a bit surprisingly, and the band seemed tight as usual. I remember them playing "Checklist," "A Moment Without An End," "She Won't Ever Figure It Out," "Little Bitch," and "LAX," likely among others.
• I missed the set completely, but I've heard from numerous sources that Napoleon Dynamite (that being Jon Heder in character) introduced Midtown.
• I got that sort of gut feeling during Gatsbys American Dream. For a band whose songs usually don't run higher than two and a half minutes, it just felt epic. It probably helps that they opened with Volcano's last track, "The Loosing Of The Shadow," and thus was able to establish an eerie, almost-Apocalyptic mood with the loud piano keys and gradually rising vocal dynamics from Nic Newsham. They had little banter in between tracks and consequently was able to throw in a bunch of tracks altogether. They immediately went into the first two tracks of Volcano after "…Loosing…," those being "Theatre" and "Pompeii." Nic flailed around a lot, and had this insistent, wide-eyed look on his face, as if some sort of revelation was constantly hitting him, as he always stared out into this unknown point in the distance behind the audience. They also included in no order "Fable," "Recondition, Reprogram, Reactivate," "Apparition," "The Dragon Of Pendor," and closed with "Shhhhhh! I'm Listening To Reason," complete with the extended intro found on Volcano bonus demos EP. It all but reaffirmed my feelings that any success that goes Gatsbys' way is deserved.
• "Friends of Bamboozle" ended up being an acoustic guitar and piano setup from Straylight Run's John and Michelle Nolan. It seemed too tame even for my tastes and the theater was filled, anyway, so I returned an hour later or so for a pretty rousing set from Piebald. Though at the behest of the crowd they never played "American Hearts," they did run through a few others including "The King," "Part Of Your Body Is Made Out Of Rock," and two solo performances from Travis Shettel smack in the middle, one of which was a cover and the other of which I can't remember. The band seemed really upbeat despite the unusual setup, cracking Jew jokes (the right-stage guy is) and nicely conversing with the crowd. Though at the end of the set I'd continued looking for more randomly playing bands, I'd have been pretty satisfied if this was the day's finish, as it was a light set of quirky rock indoors with seats and yet, the intimacy of a club show.