Catch 22/Bigwig/Fall Out Boy

live in Hartford (2003)

sk8punx4evr

To be honest, I went to this expecting somewhat of a good time, but the main reason I went was to kill time. It turns out, having a good time and killing time are interchangeable. I ventured into the Webster, about to see the all-star cast of Fall Out Boy, Bigwig, and Catch 22.

I had never heard any Fall Out Boy songs, and I found out there was a reason for that. Fall Out Boy is just another one of those bands who's primary fanbase is heavily made-up young teenage girls. Now, I don't have a problem with heavily made-up young teenage girls. Actually, I do. As Fall Out Boy was starting, I was having myself a smoke when a girl who couldn't have been older than 13 just walked right in front of me. She complained of the smoke, to which I replied, "Sorry. I don't normally smoke." The damn runts these days, don't know what's good for ‘em. Our little mishap ended there, but it didn't make Fall Out Boy's performance any better. The songs were painfully generic and essentially sounded like New Found Glory with the occasional scream. The Bane-shirt clad bassist was the screamer, but I think he only screamed random one-syllable words like "yeah" and "rah." He and the non-singing guitarist spun around a lot. They must have been dizzy and exhausted after a while, but the hordes of heavily made-up young teenage girls probably fed them the energy they needed. At one point, someone from Less Than Jake came onstage and I think Fall Out Boy dedicated the song to him. That was cool, and saved them from being total losers.

The Wig was next and I was excited. It had been almost a year since I'd seen Tom and crew! The new drummer lit his cymbals on fire and everyone cheered. It was an intense moment. They then started "Sink or Swim" and a good portion of the crowd rocked out. The bassist playing with them was, interestingly enough, the same bassist who played on their first two albums! Everyone say, "Hi John (again!)!" I was slightly disappointed, though, in finding out that he didn't play the bass line at the end of "Mr. Asshole." That riff is awesome and its' absence kind of made both me and the set feel empty. Aside from that and not playing "Numbers" (what the fuck? Isn't that a Bigwig standard?), their set was pretty good. They played all the favorites (Still, Sellout, Girl in the Green Jacket, Best of Me, etc) and all of the others that could very well be favorites (Waste, Sore Losers, Moosh, Hope, Counting Down, and Falling Down). They played well, and Tom-man really burned the frets. It wasn't the best I'd seen them, but it was damn good.

Catch 22. Once great, now mediocre. The current Catch 22 lineup seems more like a Catch 22 cover band than the actual band themselves. It seems that they're not really into it when they play, and they play too fast and fast means sloppy and sloppy means I leave early. I left probably mid-way through the set, after only hearing 2 or 3 songs that I recognized (On & On & On, Day In Day Out, Bloomfield Ave, maybe there was one more). They played some new songs too. At least the crowd liked them. I think Catch 22 fans are pretty rabid, which is good for the band. Good for you, Catch 22.

This show was alright. I succeeded in having a good time (Bigwig, 13-year-old-smoke incident), but mostly it just served as a way to kill time (Fall Out Boy, half of Catch 22). I think the tour's nearly over, so don't be on your way to see this.