Modern Baseball / Jeff Rosenstock

Live in Pawtucket (2015)

macaroni

The Met in Pawtucket played host to the "MoBo Tour" on Tuesday night - although only 3 of the 4 bands on the lineup were who ticket buyers were expecting to see. Toronto band (and punknews sweetheart),PUP, was forced to drop off the last 5 shows of the tour due to lead singer Stefan Babcock's "aggressively hemorrhaging" vocal chord. Babcock's vocal issues led to a call to the bullpen (that's a baseball reference, people) and Sorority Noise happily took the ball, coming in for relief duty. The Connecticut band joined Jeff Rosenstock and Tiny Moving Parts on this Pawtucket leg of the tour in support of Headliner's Modern Baseball. How it was possible for Sorority Noise to jump on the tour in only a day's notice is unknown, although early speculation is that this was just a simple case of divine intervention (at press time there was still no comment from any God's confirming this). Whatever the case, it was a little positivity for a tour that had already seen hardships, including, Jeff Rosenstock and band mates getting robbed of their equipment in California.

Tiny Moving Parts opened things up, taking the stage in front of the sold out crowd at 8 o clock. Surprisingly, the venue was pretty close to being full right from the jump off, including a raucous Tiny Moving Parts constituency making their presence known in front of the stage. Lead Singer, Dylan Matteisen, bounced around on stage throughout the set, showing a youthful exuberance that seemed to energize the audience throughout. Surprisingly, this was TMP's first trip to Pawtucket. By the crowd's enthusiasm, you would have suspected they play The Met regularly. Matteisen continually showed his appreciation of the crowd support throughout the set. I was not familiar with the Minnesota 3 piece before the show, but their rowdy, energetic, opening set would leave a lasting impression on me, as well as a desire to hear more from them.

Speaking of desire to hear more from a band………..Sorority Noise took the stage next. In the subjective opinion of this show attendee - their set was the highlight of the show - an absolute ripper of a set! It was the kind of performance that lingers in you, where you wake up the next morning and have an incessant need to hear more from a band. Then when you listen to the band you realize their performance has actually changed the way their music resonates with you - for the better - and that's exactly how I felt this morning listening to their "Joy, Departed" album again. Front man, Cameron Boucher put on powerful performance, perfectly balancing the dichotomy between aggressive and somber lyrical moments. Sorority's performances of both "Nolsey" and "Using" just destroyed The Met crowd, sending the place into an absolute frenzy. Boucher also used this platform to take a moment to open up on stage a bit, discussing his battle with Manic Depression and the stigmas associated with it. It was interesting that he chose to refer to it by that name, rather than "bipolar disorder" - which it is more commonly referred to as today.

Punk veteran, Jeff Rosenstock's set began with him reading off people name's from a phone that had been found on the floor. The phone owner was clearly not amused with his method for finding the owner, as she angrily made her way to the stage and begrudgingly took the phone from Rosenstock. She offered no "thank you" - just a look of "I'll probably kill you on stage before your set is over" (spoiler alert: she didn't kill him) The ungrateful phone owner retreated back into the crowd and "Get Old Forever" opened up the Rosenstock set. It was your typical high end performance from Rosenstock, playing crowd favorites like "Nausea," and "Hey Allison." The set took a unique twist midway through as Rosenstock brought out Modern Baseball's Jake Ewald to play a rousing rendition of Van Halen's "Jump." Other members of Modern Baseball took the stage to sing along as well, although one might suspect not everybody was on board with the move as Rosenstock's bassist, John DeDomenici commented about having their "set busted up" after the song ended. The trio played a couple more songs before ending their set with "Darkness Record," the final track off of 2015's "We Cool?" album.

The headliners, Modern Baseball, took the stage to finish the night out. From "The Weekend" to "Your Graduation," and all the songs in between, the Philly band gave the crowd a worthy performance. Subjectively speaking, I'm not a huge fan of Modern Baseball's, although I haven't been able to exactly pinpoint what my beef is with them. Is it the fact that front man Brendan Lukens seems to look like he wants to be somewhere else every time I see him live? Is it because bassist, Ian Farmer, is always smiling (no seriously, I've NEVER seen this human not smiling - how can you smile that much without it hurting your face? huh? how?) Maybe its just that they have such a young following that they make me feel old as shit when I go to their shows - whatever the reason I have just never been able to get on board with the Philly quartet. Yet, although they are not my cup of tea, they are clearly revered by others as the crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves throughout the performance.

What was interesting about this show is that it felt as though there was an equal amount of interest for all 4 of the bands that performed, almost as if there was no "headliner." Whereas, at some shows, crowds appear to be just waiting for the headliner to start, people seemed genuinely excited to be seeing everybody that played last night and we're fully engaged from beginning of the show until the end…..and if anybody with tickets to the last 4 tour dates are concerned about it being a Pup-less show, rest easy, Sorority Noise has you covered!