Phantom Planet and Paper Route at QCOTG
A great night to be at a show at Qualcomm’s Concerts on the Green. So great, in fact, that I am gonna break up what would normally be one show post into three smaller ones for your reading pleasure.
So first off, the venue. The stage is on a grass field tucked away in the southwest corner of Qualcomm’s parking lot. It’s far enough away to not be interuppted by the trolley and actually very spacious as it was the former practice field of the Chargers in another life. Sight lines were good, sound was great, teenagers were everywhere.
We did get there in time to catch Paper Route. Their live sound was true to the recorded EP Are We All Forgotten that I have been listening to. I didn’t keep a set list, but they played all of the songs from the EP. Vocal duties were shared by Chad and JT - they alternated songs it seemed. Not bad at all.
I was definitely excited about catching Phantom Planet again as I only caught a couple of songs the last time I saw them at SOMA. They started with the title track from their latest LP Raise the Dead. They played another song I didn’t quite recognize and then Alex went on a tangent about the Queen Mary and finally got around to announcing the next song, “Ship Lost at Sea”, another new song. Next was the single “Do The Panic”, which I lovelovelove. It sounded great - kind of retro in a college rock in the 80’s way. Then it was “Dropped” before seguing into a more upbeat version of “California”. This was after Alex made an allusion to this song being on the OC soundtrack and who they wrote it with (Jason Schwartzman, duh). I like the slower version just fine, but it does sound great with more of an upbeat tempo and a little more electric guitar.
The set change was fast and furious and I squeed when I saw them rolling Andrew’s black grand piano out on stage...but we’ll get to that in the next post....
Phantom Planet - Do The Panic
