Dashboard Confessional and Augustana at KC’s Uptown Theatre
Time to sweep the cobwebs off the blog and get things back to normal around here. Still in KC as my friend is getting married tomorrow. So I got a bonus show in which is cool since I was not able to see Dashboard and Augustana in SD since I was in Stockton.
A little about the venue....gorgeous. The Uptown is an old theatre with a grand history that closed for few years but was renovated and reopened in 1994. These types of venues are my favorite....places like this and the Granada in Dallas and the Sunshine in Albuquerque make me wax nostalgic about SD’s own grand theatre that is no longer open - The California Theatre, where I saw some of my first shows in my youth.
So first up was John Ralston, who like Chris Carraba of Dashboard, is signed to Vagrant and is from South Florida. And he is pretty much what I expected. A bit power pop leaning on that indie college vibe. Not bad but nothing that sparked my interest further.
I was all geeked up for Augustana. They played quite a few new songs - they actually only played “Wasteland” and “Boston” from their debut album. The rest of their 30 minute set was filled with a bunch of new songs. Some that are well established in their live shows by now ("I’ll Meet You There Someday” and “Still Ain’t Over You") and some that I think are going to be new fan faves. I’m guessing this one song is called “Don’t Call Me Baby” and it is done acoustic with all of them taking turns on lead vocals. Totally a good song.
After Augustana’s short set, we were treated to a bunch of cool music to listen to (Nada Surf’s “Always Love” and five songs from Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American” which everyone was singing to). While we were all singing “A Praise Chorus” and what have you, the road crew got everything off stage and just left Chris Carraba’s acoustic set up. Yes, that’s right, pretty much a Chris Carraba solo tour - probably what his fans really want in any case. Who needs drum and bass when you spend the entire show singing along? Of course, that is exactly what everyone did. I would have too but caught a cold here in KC and have absolutely no voice. (I tried to fix it with jager at the bachelorette party last night, but that didn’t seem to help.)
This really was a classic Dashboard show. I missed the first song (probably something from one of the last two records) but was sucked in when I started singing the lines to “Again I Go Unnoticed” Please send me anything but signals that are mixed.... And then in the next song, the classic “Swiss Army Romance”, Chris teased Say Anything’s “Wow I Can Get Sexual”....(I called her on the phone and she touched herself...). And of course, the crowd totally dug it and sang along. “The Best Deceptions” yielded a strong singalong for the lines So kiss me hard because this will be the last time that I let you. And of course, everyone sang every word to “Screaming Infidelities”. The next three songs were “Dusk and Summer”, “Where There’s Gold” and “Thick As Thieves”. Two of those are from the new album that just came out a couple of weeks ago. I did actually like “Thick As Thieves” which I think is the single. Chris introduced the song by telling some story about an ex-gfriend with a switchblade. Yeah, right, but whatevs. I was glad when he segued into “The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most” and was even more stoked when he teased Phantom Planet’s “California”. But what really surprised me was that the cover of Weezer’s “El Scorcho”. He actually recorded a cd of covers that they were selling at the show and this was one of the songs on it. It was surprisingly awesome. Then a great version of “Vindicated” before ending the set with “Stolen”.
Of course, that wasn’t it. A two song encore with the title track of the new album and the perenial set closer “Hands Down”. No one ever wants that song to end, so it was cool that Chris extended the last few lines for a bit....
And you kissed me like you meant it
And I knew that you meant it
That you meant it...
Of course you did. Rawk on for the full set list (beside the opening song...I’ll track it down later and update).
