The Good Life / Make Believe / Zykos

live in Philadelphia (2005)

nocarsgo

Thursday, May 12th. A nice, cool spring day in Philadelphia at the First Unitarian Church, one of my personal favorite venues. The atmosphere of the place is awesome. The Church is, well, a church. Shows are played in the basement of the church. Recently, the Church has had some huge shows, including the Bouncing Souls.

The doors opened around 8 o'clock. Quickly, the first opener, Austin, Texas' Zykos, took the stage. Zykos is basically an indie pop band with a female keyboardist whom my friend kept calling the "hottest girl ever." I thought she was just alright. Anyway, I took this time to browse the records that are sold in the back. I was basically just bored during their set. While some songs showed promise, the singer's voice was awful and, therefore, ruined the songs. The last song they played, however, had an extremely infective keyboard part that couldn't help but make you dance.

I then took a spot on the side of the stage in time for Make Believe. I don't know too much about them, but I do know that Make Believe features at least a few of the members of Joan Of Arc, including vocalist Tim Kinsella. Before the show, Kinsella seemed very calm and mellow. I guess that all went out the window after stepping on stage and having a few beers. As soon as the set started, Kinsella began to move around the stage wildly, frequently crouching down, lying on the floor, and moving his arms wildly. Meanwhile, their bassist was bouncing with every beat while the guitarist just stood there, playng away. Kinsella was basically a loose cannon on stage, pressing on heads, lassoing the audience, and, at one point, trying to rip off an audience member's shirt. It was a very interesting preformance.

Finally, the Good Life went on. They set up fairly quickly. Then, the rest of the band left the stage, leaving just vocalist Tim Kasher (with an acoustic guitar in hand) and drummer Roger Lewis on stage. Going into the show, I was hoping that they would play "Inmates," the nine-minute song about a girl who decided that she was done with a relationship, but didn't expect them to play it. Well, with the first chords of the set, I quickly realised that I was wrong. The band played the full song, with the other members of the band taking the stage for their various parts.

I quickly realised that Kasher had the crowd in the palm of his hands. It was clear that the man knows how to work a crowd. He would frequently make witty comments in response to things yelled by the crowd. For instance, someone in the crowd asked Kasher to "eat his anus." Kasher then went on a tirade about how he would love to take the relationship with the crowd member to that level. Then during "Album Of the Year," he substituted "and she kissed me on the mouth" with "and she kissed me on the anus."

The band blazed through all of their hits during the 1 and a 1/2 hour set, including the aforementioned "Album Of The Year," "Notes In His Pocket," and "Lovers Need Lawyers," as well as some older songs from their second full-length, Black Out. Kasher also preformed a song that he wrote in 1994 by himself. The set ended with Kasher jumping on the drummer and knocking off the drum set.

Overall, it was a great show. It was apparent that Tim Kasher just has fun playing music, and it definitely pays off.