THRICE + Say Anything + Attack In Black @ Metropolis

By Josh Mocle - The Kids are So-So - 02/16/2008

It’s kinda funny. A couple weeks ago, I was the young kid at the Sick of It All show, not fully getting it, and now I was the old fart at the Thrice show that possibly got it too much. While the band received a modicum of success between 2003 and 2006 as part of the second to last wave of emo and post-hardcore bands to receive the notice of major labels after cracking their teeth in the underground for most of the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, their mainstream popularity has been waning in the past two years. This caused a change in the audience of a standard Thrice show more than I could have imagined. This being the fifth time I’ve seen the band, I can (happily) declare that many from the trendy hair swoosh and tight pants society have found their way to other endeavors (although a few still remain) and the ones left behind are, well, largely people like me (and by that I mean the ones who listened to the band before they were on MTV and who actually stuck around when *gasp* they decided to stop playing the same screamo songs over and over again and actually began to make interesting music).

Toronto’s Attack In Black opened the show and while there were only a handful of people there to watch them, those who were there were treated to a set by arguably one of the most talented Canadian bands out there right now. Mark my words, these guys are gonna be BIG very soon. While I admit, I was only somewhat familiar with their folk-tinged indie rock (with a punk edge) beforehand, their set came off as reminiscent of MeWithoutYou at their very best (which is funny since their new record comes off as Sunny Day Real Estate at their very best). It’s a shame these guys only got to play for a half hour, especially given what came next…

Let me make something very clear: while I haven’t listened to them for a few years, I was willing to give Say Anything the benefit of the doubt since for a good span of time, they were arguably one of my absolute favourite bands (hey, we all make mistakes right?). Regardless, while I wasn’t looking forward to the performance by any means, I wasn’t condemning it beforehand either (especially given the fact that I had somehow never seen them live). Turns out I might as well have because from the moment the band took the stage, it was apparent that they didn’t give a shit. If The Ataris or New Found Glory never existed, Say Anything’s run-of-the-mill pop-punk might be considered original, and even I will admit that lack of originality can be surpassed by decent showmanship, but these guys had neither. Singer Max Bemis strutted around stage like a younger (but just as pompous) Steven Tyler while the other five band members (that’s right, three guitarists, two of which could probably have been cut out) pretty much stood there, barely moving three inches in any direction. To top it all off, they only played for around twenty-five minutes (roughly half the time they were allotted) before leaving the stage rather abruptly. I think an important case study can be made by watching the career of this band over the next few years: given that they just broke into the mainstream after being underground darlings for many years, they can afford to play shitty shows since, fuck, they’re getting paid anyway. Let’s see how things are in a few years when they get dropped from whatever major signed them and they actually have to rely on their talent to survive -- and don’t get me wrong, there is some talent there (mostly on the part of Bemis), but I’d say it isn’t coming close to being realized right now.

Which brings me to Thrice themselves. There really isn’t much I can say about this band that I haven’t already: they’re still tight as all hell, their musical output continues on its journey into the indefinable (which is a very, very good thing) and they still seem to be genuinely having fun creating music (which definitely translates well to their live performance). Most of their set was taken from their newest record, The Alchemy Index Volume’s 1&2: Fire and Water, which in and of itself marks a few firsts for the band. It is their first record while back on an independent label after their brief flirtation with Island/Def Jam (Vagrant picked them up shortly after they were dropped) and it’s also the first record they’ve released that was written, recorded and produced entirely by themselves. That having been said, there was a clear distinction between the songs they played off this record (as well the few songs from the next record, The Alchemy Index Volume 3&4 and their last record, Vheissu) and the ones they played off their older records: they enjoyed playing the new stuff much more. When a band truly enjoys what they are doing it shows, and the effort and dedication they showed to songs like “The Whaler,” “Burn the Fleet” and this reporter’s personal favourite, “For Miles,” just wasn’t there during older tunes like “The Artist in the Ambulance” and fan favourite, “Deadbolt.” Almost as if they were just playing them because they felt they had to in order to appease the traditionalists in the audience (and indeed, even after they played it there were those in the audience who kept chanting “play ‘Deadbolt’ again!”), not because they wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, I love “Deadbolt” as much as the next guy, but if they hadn’t played it I wouldn’t have been disappointed.

In my last review, I spoke a lot about longevity and the capacity for a person to relate to a band and the various factors that can influence that and -- if I may be so bold -- I dare say Thrice have the potential to be around for many years to come; however, people who are just getting into this music now will probably not be able to relate to them like I could (and, to be honest, if universally relatable music exists at all it is few and far between and certainly does not reside within the rock scene), but that may just be my cynical stripes showing.

Josh Mocle is a self-hating third gen. emo kid (but he’s had an emoectomy, so it’s cool). He thinks you should listen to whatever he’s calling his show at the time this is published on Tuesdays from 2 to 4 in the PM because it’s what JFK would have done.