Armor For Sleep, Underoath & Taking Back Sunday: March 3rd 2007

the rumors are true, last night I saw all three of these bands in Milwaukee at the Eagles Ballroom. it was a sold out show. whoo!I love Armor For Sleep. to say they were dead on for every note and word and moment of their (sadly much too short) set would be saying the least. they put on the perfect live show. they weren't too showy, but they didn't hide. they were friendly, not preachy or comedic. they filled the entire room with more and more energy with each song, even when they played "a quick little flight", which is a very low-key track. Ben Jorgensen's voice live? kinda slayed me a little bit. I was pretty much so impressed that I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest for love of them. I love Armor For Sleep.I used to love Underoath. that's not to say I don't like them anymore, I really do. but I really used to fucking love Underoath. for a period of time, they were kind of my life. and last time I saw them (october 2005), I basically had the same reaction that I did for AFS this time around. but two things were made clear to me during UO's set last night: (1) they have worked really hard at attempting to perfect the "rock show" and (2) I really do not like define the great line. I tried, my god I've tried. but other than "in regards to myself" and "writing on the walls", every single one of the tracks on that album falls flat for me. thankfully, they did play those two songs last night, along with two (yes, only two) old songs. everything else was the unimpressive new stuff. it was for this reason only that I really didn't enjoy their set the way I expected to. I took a step back and just stood and watched them perform instead of trying to be in the moment with the music. they really have been trying to perfect their performance. which, at the time, I was impressed with. as I watched Spencer prance around onstage, and Aaron stand up behind his drumkit and yell, I felt some weird excitement at seeing them try to win over the crowd. in retrospect, however, it makes me a little bit sad. they don't need to perform like they're working from a script. they don't need to win over their audience. they should be good enough to stand on their own two (erm, ten) feet and let their music do that for them. they are not the Killers. they are not U2. this is not performance art. and Chris didn't once throw his hand in the air properly.I hate Taking Back Sunday. I never use the word "hate" seriously, but right now I really am not sure if I mean it or not. TBS's set was GOD AWFUL. they played for close to two hours and I grimaced through at least an hour and fifteen minutes of it. louder now is a piss poor excuse for a TBS album and I do not like any of it. if I actually owned the cd I would honestly go throw it away right now. I would break the fucking disc in half and throw it in the trash. that's how much I dislike it. and, no, I do not think I'm overreacting. the last time I saw TBS was April 2002. I know the band has been through changes since then, but when the hell did Adam Lazzara forget how to fucking sing? I'm not even sure that's what he was attempting to do. that's how horrible it was. the one shining beacon of hope during their set was the number of tracks they played off of where you want to be (count: 4). I give it up for tell all your friends often, but I honestly believe wywtb is a better album musically and it's definitely my favorite. so even though they peformed those four songs really horribly, I'm still glad I got to hear them. (sidenote: the other beacon of hope, entertainment-wise, was the couple that were next to us making out for the entire two hours. and when I mean making out, I mean this was not even appropriate for PG13. it was intense. and I'm certain at one point his hand was in her jeans zipper.) so for the encore, Adam Lazzara came out with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica and all of a sudden decided that he was Conor Oberst Pt. 2. and if that wasn't bad enough, he segued from his shitty ass emo tripe into the Killer's "when you were young". I have never wanted to shoot myself in the face at a show more. I hate Taking Back Sunday.if you're asking yourself, well Bree, why didn't you just walk out?, my response would be "because I was with four other people and it was about 10 degrees outside and I didn't have a sweater". sometimes the overwhelming urge to shoot yourself in the face outweighs freezing to death three blocks from the milwaukee ghetto.