A lot of times when I hear albums or go to live shows I think of what I would say in a review of it. I try to keep tabs on the highlights, but mainly all the bad stuff that there was. God damn, I am an asshole! In any case, three days earlier I was at the Braid and Minus The Bear show, and I came to the realization that I had nothing to say. Minus The Bear was incredibly tight and fantastic and Braid was amazing in all of their charismatic post-punk glory. However, what happened there that I could say in a review? My review would be "Go see this tour if you like these bands, it was really damn good" and then I would give it a bunch of stars.
The thing is, it was predictable. I was expecting Minus the Bear and Braid to totally tear it up, and I was right...that show rocked. However, a last minute trip to the Northstar Bar to see a band you don't know much about how they play live. My friend invited me to see Boys Night Out with headliners My Chemical Romance. I've been listening to their full-length on Ferret Records ever since I heard their damn e-card online, so I was excited to see them. I didn't know what their live show would be like.
If you've never heard Boys Night Out, their sound is a combination of pop-punk and hardcore. Yeah, I know what you're thinking -- "oh another one of those bands". But these guys, unlike the countless others, make it work. It's basically catchy hardcore. I was very curious as to how they would play live, seeing as I've only heard their songs -- that's the most I knew about them -- I didn't even know what they looked like.
When they actually did come out, the Northstar crowd was wilder than I had ever seen them before. It was the first time I saw a mosh pit at the Northstar, and I've seen a couple hardcore shows there. I like how they started their show; their singer came out and introduced the band, then proceeded to sing the intro to "(Just Once) Let's Do Something Different", which is all vocals for about 2 seconds before the whole band kicks in. It was damn hot in the Northstar that night, plus it was humid because everyone was soaked in rainwater from waiting in line. Despite becoming almost instantly drenched in sweat, the band was rocking out. Their set was very heavy on material from "Make Yourself Sick" with only two songs from their earlier EP.
The highlights of the set were that the band is extremely tight live, and when they play live it sound just like a less condensed version of their recordings. When bands can take their recordings and just open them up into a good live show. I also enjoyed that they played almost all their songs. The singer was funny with his between song banter -- he explained that he was worried that people wouldn't catch him if he passed out from heat exhaustion, not becuase he was fat, but because he was slippery. Instead of listening to the awkward laughter afterwards (is it against scene rules to laugh? i think it might be) the band broke into the next song. The lower points of the show included the other bands playing, who I personally was not interested in, although Nightmare of You has potential if they just stop making all their songs sound the same.
So, if you like Boys Night Out, please check them out, they put on a great show. I didn't stay for My Chemical Romance, so I'm not going to pretend that I saw them and didn't like them, I just cut out early and did something more worthwhile -- got french fries at another part of the bar.