The Faint and Jaguar Love at SOMA
I’ve got my timing to arrive at SOMA shows down to a science. I missed the first opening band all together and got there in time to get to my regular perch by the sound guys for Jaguar Love. Since their show at the Beauty Bar, I’ve had the chance to hear a lot of their new material, so I was way more familiar with what they played. They started off with “Bats Over the Pacific Ocean” and then right into “Highways of Gold”. During “Highways”, it was pretty obvious to me that the sound guy was having trouble with Johnny’s vocals, which is bad because it’s Johnny’s distinct vocals that make their sound so unique. They never quite got it right until near the end of their set, but I was able to make out a few of the new songs from their forthcoming album - “Jaguar Pirates”, “Georgia” and “The Man With The Plastic Suns”. They ended strongly with “My Organ Sounds Like....” and then it was all sorts of nervous energy until the Faint hit the stage. Set list first....
The Faint
SOMA San Diego
8/9/08
Agenda Suicide
Dropkick the Punks
Hospital
Machine in the Ghost
Desperate Guys
Forever Growing Centipedes
Birth
Your Retro Career Melted
I Treat You Wrong
Psycho
Posed to Death
Get Seduced
Disappear
In Concert
Mirror Error
Worked Up So Sexual
Encore:
Paranoiattack
The Geeks Were Right
Glass Danse
Oh, the Faint. Where do I start? Light show? Check. Black and White visuals projecting behind the band? Check. A whole venue full of sweaty kids (and some old peeps like me) dancing their a$$es off on a Saturday night? Check.
All eyes were on Todd Fink as he strolled on stage in his all white get up with black glasses (I guess that’s what I’d call them) and got the crowd going with three favorites - “Agenda Suicide”, “Dropkick the Punks”, and “Hospital” (only found on Saddle Creek’s 50). That was a good time to introduce a new song, “Machine in the Ghost” which fit right into the dancetastic set thus far. Todd kept throwing in new songs in the middle of crowd favorites which really kept the pace of the show moving. I really enjoyed “Forever Growing Centipedes” between “Desperate Guys” and “Birth”. The crowd pretty much freaked out when they hit “Disappear” and it was a non-stop groove fest to bring us to “Worked Up So Sexual”.
The encore just sealed the deal. “Paranoiattack” brought everyone to an even higher level of excitement. Todd introduced their new single “The Geeks Were Right” and even though (according to the official setlist that was going to be the last song), they ended the show with “Glass Danse”. Somewhere during the evening, Todd commented on how much better San Diego was as opposed to L.A. and he also made it a point to end the show by thanking the San Diego fans for being so good to them. Very nice. And a perfect ending to another stellar Faint performance in SD.
