Waking Ashland opened things up, and yeah, this is comparatively lazy, but the Something Corporate-lite style wasn't really doing it for me, despite them being one of the tighter bands of the night.

Gatsbys American Dream was next, but they took the stage as a four-piece, which meant: no keyboards. Anyone who knows the band also knows that the stronger tracks off their last two efforts are fairly dependent upon the instrument, and thus, the band was way more raw than both the last I'd seen them and on record. Nevertheless, they rocked out as much as a math pop band can for all half-dozen of their fans in attendance. In this general order, the band played "The Loosing Of The Shadow" (minus dramatic opening), "Theatre," "Pompeii," "Recondition, Reprogram, Reactivate," "In The Land Of Lost Monsters," "Apparition," and "Shhhhhh! I'm Listening To Reason."

I watched Spitalfield from afar. They seemed sloppier than usual, playing cuts from their last two full-lengths including opener "Texas Bum Blues," "I Loved The Way She Said L.A.," "Gold Dust Vs. The State Of Illinois," and some others including a happy birthday rendition for an audience member, preceding a four-second "Snake Bite" ditty (the latter of which was played twice). There was a friend filling in for bass guitarist T.J. as well.

Action Action closed for some odd reason, and while I don't fawn over their synth-laden rock, they do have a decent sound, and tonight it was awash in them with the bassist and guitarists almost always fiddling with them at some point or another. I should also mention they were quite together, constantly on time with each other and proving they've plenty live experience under their belts from past bands. The set list included "Drug Like," "Photograph," "This Year's Fashion," and some others my piss-poor memory won't allow me to reveal.

Moral of the story: Gatsbys needs to do a co-headlining tour with a band of relatively equal status and size, and bring a keyboardist.