Taking Back Sunday / The Starting Line / The Reunion Show / Northstar - live in Carborro, NC (Cover Artwork)

Taking Back Sunday / The Starting Line / The Reunion Show / Northstar

live in Carborro, NC (2002)

live show


Taking Back Sunday, The Starting Line, The Reunion Show, and Northstar played to a completely sold out Cat's Cradle on December 11 in Carborro, NC. In all the shows I've seen at the venue this was the one with the longest line ever. It was also a pretty diverse crowd there with I'd say about half there for Taking Back Sunday and half for The Starting Line.

The line was so long in fact that I missed part of Northstar, a band who I really was looking forward to seeing. Anyways, I heard the first few songs from outside, and they sounded really, really good live. They started off with "Rigged and Ready" and "Broken Down Parachute" and then played a few more songs off of their album ending with "Is This Thing Loaded". They had amazing energy, and were all over the stage making for a very fun set to watch. A lot of kids there didn't know who they were before then, but it seemed like they made a lot of new fans in the process.

Next up was The Reunion Show. They put on a pretty good set as well, playing old stuff as well as stuff off the last CD. The highlight of their set was "Television" which kind of got the crowd as a whole pretty energized.

The Starting Line played third. I'm not a huge fan of theirs, but it's hard to deny they put on a damn good show. Their singer Kenny goes berzerk on stage. The only problem with them is that their fans suck. It was I guess a bunch of girls who were shrieking in orgasmic delight whenever one of the guys in the band looked at them, and a bunch of guys wearing abercrombie and they were just as obnoxious. I know they played "Greg's Last Day" and some other stuff from their CD, but then they played "I'm Real" from the Punk Goes Pop record and Adam Lazzara sang with them, and then on their last song, Mark, TBS' drummer, sang. Those were the highlights.

Finally Taking Back Sunday came, and the kids really came alive. This was also sort of Adam's hometown show since he is from NC, and this was the club he grew up coming to. He told the crowd he only felt like he was a 6 on the night but he was easily over a 10. They tore through their set playing I believe everyhing off of "Tell All Your Friends" except for "Blue Channel" because Adam said it was such an amazing night and without a piano the song would suck and he didn't want to ruin what was going on. They also played "Head Club" for only the second time ever live. They also played "The Ballad of Sal Villanueva" from Victory Style 5. Their new song they played was also pretty awesome. They ended their set with "Timberwolves at NJ". After that some kid in the crowd yelled out Thursday, and that actually pissed Adam off, and he berated the kid telling him how unclever that was and it was not funny anymore. Anyways, TBS then played an encore of "There's No I in Team" and it was by far the best song of the night.

People are always saying how Adam tries to be like Geoff from Thursday but there is no denying that he puts on one hell of a show and is the most fun person in the world to watch. You may hate them, but TBS puts on one insane live show.