by michael d. woliansky
photos by rachel leah woliansky 

       We were late.  Were you surprised?             

      I really wanted to see Whatever It Takes.  I had heard a bunch of good things about them from Rachel, among other people–members of Anti-Flag, good live show, etc.–but alas, things don’t always work the way we’d like them to, and we walked in the door just as Hey Mercedes’ set began. 

     Good and bad things have been said about these guys, a fate that usually befalls musicians that wander into “ex-members” territory.  For some old-school fans it will never be the same without ____ around.  For others, new and old, they’ve never seen better stuff.  Now, these guys are not Braid, even if three out of the four members were in Braid (guitarist Mark Dawursk is the only new ingredient in the mix.)  They’re damn close to the original, but the subtle differences make all the difference to me.

      The sound is basically the same:  Bob Nanna’s soothing, lispy vocals over fuzzy, thick guitars and intricate drumming.  But more solid and complete songwriting helps them succeed where Braid’s sometimes loose and unusual structure failed.  But Nanna doesn’t really try anything new with his vocals or vocal melodies, which I’ve never been extremely fond of in the past, so things sometimes fall flat where I think there could be intense dynamic sound.  Still, I was real impressed by some of the powerful riffs and chord structures they used, definitely evoking a Foo Fighters comparison for me.  The mid-westerner's played a fairly short, tight set and quickly made room for the hometown heroes.

check out more pictures of Hey Mercedes here

      Children of the New Brunswick scene, Thursday took the stage in front of a friend-filled hometown crowd and tore the place apart.  I’d never seen them before, and I was fairly impressed.  Their music blends the gut wrenching and the melodic with less precision and groove than a band like The Deftones, but with the same dynamic power.  On stage they explode with kid-like energy and abandon, the way only skinny little white boys in extra-small t-shirts know how to blow-up: from the inside out, taking the whole crowd with them.  Singer Geoff Rickly belted out violent screams and flowed through powerful melodies, while still spending much of the show handing the mic out to the crowd.  They played one or two songs from their older ep on Eyeball Records, Waiting, but most of their set came from from their first full-length release on Victory Records, Full Collapse. They closed with an amazingly powerful version of “Cross Out The Eyes” that, like most of their songs, had most of the crowd singing along and jabbing their pointed fingers and fists into the thick, dripping air.

check out more pictures of Thursday here

     Only Saves The Day could wreak more havoc at a show in New Jersey–and they did.  A fitting and triumphant homecoming after the massively successful Vagrant Across America Tour, this sold-out show was one of Saves The Day’s first after more than two months of rest.  Now I used to think Save The Day was a rather poor live band.  Strike that–I thought they were terrible.  There was always an energy and intensity totally lacking in their performance, from the first time I saw them play in a hall three years ago in North Jersey, all the way up to the Face to Face tour last winter.  I couldn’t help but enjoy their albums, so I couldn’t really figure out why they fell so short in their live performance.

      But that night, something was different.  The sound of Lifetime’s Jersey’s Best Dancers faded from the house speakers (admittedly an ironic choice....I remember when kids used to tease Chris with shouts of “Ari” when they played in Philly, “back in the day”) and the stage lights dimmed.  Some rather dramatic music that I couldn’t quite place began to play–perhaps the bellowing, dramatic horns of a John Williams movie soundtrack, but I can’t be sure–and four young kids in blue jeans and t-shirts (plus Hey Mercedes’ Damon Atkinson filling in on drums for the departed Bryan Newman), walked casually onto the stage.

      Maybe it was the crowd’s overwhelming energy.  Maybe it was the heat, or the lack of oxygen started getting to me.  But from the first chord, Saves The Day were actually good.  In fact, they were really, really good.  Energetic, engaging, and powerful all at once.  One crowd surfer after another took flight, landing on the stage (and undoubtedly on the soft, fragile heads of the people below them), tugging at singer Chris Conley's pant-leg, reaching out for his hand.  He sang like a giddy schoolgirl, seemingly intoxicated by the over-powering energy of the crowd.  “You guys don’t know how beautiful you are” he bemused over the microphone between songs.

      After seven or eight songs, Conley gave the frenzied crowd a chance to relax with a two-song, solo acoustic interlude, which included "Three Miles Down," the only acoustic track from their first album, Cant Slow Down, and one of only two songs they played from the album all night.  Girls swooned, heart-broken pre-pubescent boys sang along, pounding their fists to their chests–‘twas a rather beautiful scene indeed.  But it wasn’t long before the rest of the band returned to the stage for another barrage of five-part intensity.

      A majority of their set was comprised of tracks from their newest album, Stay What You Are, on indie big-boy Vagrant Records.  And although I haven’t had a chance to listen to the album at great length, it’s evident from their live performance that I can expect something very different.  In only a few short years, Saves The Day has developed a really strong and undeniable pop-sensibility.  Their songwriting has grown and changed in leaps and bounds, from the aptly-titled Can’t Slow Down, which reeled with intensity and reckless abandon, to the more melodic and catchy Through Being Cool, where Conley & company found the catchy chorus (“Shoulder To The Wheel”) and ran with it.

check out more pictures of Saves The Day here

      With the new songs they played from Stay What You Are, they take another big step, experimenting with mellower guitar sounds, and new vocal melodies.  There are some tremendous choruses, as they slowly and patiently find power and emotion without break-neck speed, thick distortion, or tremendous volume.  It is very pop–some of the new songs even feel a bit teeny bopper-ish at times–but without all those cheesy, vacant lyrics.  Chris Conley’s bitter, edgy lyrical musings blend with beautiful pop songwriting.  I’m trying to imagine punk meets Simon & Garfunkel, but I’m having a hard time making it stick.  It’s certainly not revolutionary, and I’m not even sure where to place it on the “sounds like” meter, but it feels like uncharted territory to me.

      They closed their set with the first single off of Stay What You Are, a catchy, rather poppy tune titled “At Your Funeral.  (You just may have caught the video on M2.) Conley smiled away and let the crowd sing into his open arms until the distorted guitars kicked in, and the song drove off into the sunset with him at the wheel.  After the crowd briefly chanted “one more song!” the boys returned to the stage and finished everyone’s night off with an energetic “Holly Hocks,” from their breakout sophomore release, Through Being Cool, and guitarist Ted Alexander collapsed to the floor, swimming in that last ringing chord.  

www.victoryrecords.com     www.vagrant.com

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