During the opening band, Armor for Sleep, we slipped into a space in the crowd about ten feet away from stage left. Armor was a rather generic sounding indie/emo band, they played a handful of songs that all seemed to be about sex and being bored at parties. I was not impressed and decided to take the opportunity to go buy a beer, for seven dollars! I took the beer back into the crowd and sipped it while trying to appreciate anything about the band other than the lead singer’s argyle sweater, which was awesome by the way.
When Armor soon left the stage, the excitement really started building. My girlfriend and I began pushing and squeezing our way as close to the stage as possible. The next band was the real reason we had come out that night. People all around were screaming and dancing about, as sound tech guys set up the stage with instruments and tuned them up.
The lights went out and the sound of techno buzzed as the six members of Underoath took the stage. Tension built with the opening guitars of “In Regards to Self”, the first track off their most recent release, “Define the Great Line,” and the crowd exploded when, lead singer, Spencer Chamberlain screamed, “Wake up, wake up, wake up, this is not a test!”
Quickly the individual bodies in the crowd converged into a swaying sea of flailing limbs and pulsing rhythms. Mosh pits began to breakout in every direction, and fists were aflyin’. From the unstable movement of the crowd, to avoiding the punches/ kicks and the crowd surfers, it became quite the task to just stand on your own two feet. Not to mention I lost my wallet and spent a lot of the set searching the floor for it, luckily someone had returned it to the security desk.
The band’s set was intense and action packed, consisting mostly of songs from, “Define the Great Line,” but they did manage to squeeze in two older songs, “Young and Aspiring” and “It’s a Dangerous Business Walking out of your front door”, both from the album, “They’re only Chasing Safety.” But for many, myself included, there weren’t any old enough, from their first album, “The Changing of Times.” Regardless of that fact, though, the band put on an amazing show, full of energy, and even devoted their set to, that’s right, Jesus Christ, “whether you liked it or not”. When Underoath finally left the stage I was both disappointed that it was over, yet relieved to be able to sit down and relax.
The headlining band that night was Taking Back Sunday, and well, let’s just say that someone needs to take it back from them. Even if you do like this band’s cds, their live show should make you run for the hills. The singer’s voice was totally shot, and whoever was running the soundboard did not know how to make each instrument level. Everything was unequal. And if this wasn’t enough, the lead singer had to tell stupid five-minute stories in between every song, including explaining a joke he had just made about it being “Al Gore hot” on stage. What a sad display. Underoath was certainly the highlight of the night and should have been the headliners.
