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Minus the Bear and Cursive have been on tour for the past few months in support of their 2012 releases. Minus the Bear put out Infinity Overhead in August, while Cursive has been supporting I Am Gemini since February. The second leg of their tour is coming to a close but not before we had a chance to check out the show.

San Antonio's, Girl In a Coma, have been opening the show on this second leg of the tour. I didn't get to see much of their set, but they were energetic and fit for fans of Sleater-Kinney and Screaming Females. Up next were Cursive. They opened their set with I Am Gemini's, "This House Alive." They immediately jumped right into "Sierra" from their critically acclaimed, The Ugly Organ--at which point many attendees reacted with much excitement. I know I was excited. Often times, Kasher, will exaggerate the vocals--especially on older songs--but this was a pristine performance. Make no mistake though, he did do it later in the set. "Rise Up, Rise Up" made its way onto the setlist before another from their latest album, "Warmer, Warmer."

They decided to jump back to Domestica with "The Casualty." It's nice to see a band jump that far back into their catalog as a supporting band. I was pleased when I finally got to hear the band perform one of my favorites from, Mama, I'm Swollen--"Caveman." It was another one of the better performed songs from their set. They continue to promote I Am Gemini with one of its stronger tracks, "Drunken Birds." Cursive appease the fans in the crowd with "Art is Hard." The only downside was it was one of the songs where Kasher decided to overdo the vocals with a more guttural performance. After taking a shot, they go on with the show by playing the fast-paced "From the Hips." Of the songs they played, it seemed they enjoyed themselves most on this one. Maybe it was the shot or maybe they just love the song, haha. Either way, it was the most enjoyable moment of their set. Unfortunately, it was countered with one of their weaker songs, "The Sun and Moon." After playing The Ugly Organ's, "The Recluse," Kasher put his mic stand into the crowd--with himself following--and ended their set with fan-favorite, "Big Bang"with Kasher playing in the middle of the crowd.

After some time, Minus the Bear came out for their fastest selling show of the tour. Despite the many chances I've had to see Minus the Bear over the years, this was going to be my first time. Unfortunately, I wasn't too familiar with most of the material. However, it was great to hear a couple favorites of mine like, "The Game Needed Me" from Menos El Oso and "Absinth Party at The Fly Honey Warehouse," from Highly Refined Pirates. It was a bummer to notice not many people getting that into it. It was a Saturday night and the show was sold out. However, most of the crowd was standing around and hardly singing along. Minus the Bear put on a great show, but if that's how the fans are at their shows, I'd probably be more inclined to see them again in a venue with some seating. The tour is almost over, but if you're in the Northwest, you've still got a chance to catch it. It's a stacked line-up with some great musicians, so don't miss out.

Murder by Death have just begun to tour for their new album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, by supporting pop-punk troop, Say Anything. It's an interesting combo and Murder by Death certainly come off as the runt of the tour line-up. However, they managed to pack their set with more fast paced befitting tracks from their catalog for the Say Anything fans.

I missed Tallhart, but made it just in time to catch Ohio's, The Sidekicks. I've been keeping an eye on this band since I heard their side of a split they did with Tigers Jaw. Not to mention, the band's been receiving more attention this year with their critically acclaimed, Awkward Breeds. It was nice to finally see them perform. They put on a fun and energetic set, and the crowd seemed to be into it.

Next up were Murder by Death. It wouldn't be my first time seeing them as a supporting band, but they were a bit more out of place on this tour. They opened their set with the new single, "I Came Around." I thought it was a solid introduction to the crowd of people who had never heard the band before. Much of their set consisted of singles and new tracks--following up with "Ball & Chain" and "Sometimes the Line Walks You (including the "Radar Love" interlude)." I don't know if it was the acoustics or them, but it sounded like they were a little off at first. They tightened things up as the set went on.

Frontman, Adam Turla, attempts to get a little crowd participation going as he introduces the next song, "The Curse of Elkhart." He demonstrates how the audience can get involved by singing the backing wails sung during the chorus. Fortunately the crowd decided to join in. Murder by Death then broke out Red of Tooth and Claw's lead single, "Fuego" before jumping into Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon's ardent track, "Hard World." Turla announced that they hadn't played the song very often, but I hope they get a bit more attached to it as it's a great song in a live setting and bound to become a fan-favorite. They continue to promote their new album with "Straight at the Sun" before jumping back to In Bocca Al Lupo's classic, "Brother."

Up until now, Murder by Death have ignored half their catalog. They decided to go back to Who Will Survive... for one track and play "Until Morale Improves, The Beatings Will Continue."  It's not much of a surprise that they pulled Like the Exorcist tracks out of their set, although it would have been nice to hear "I'm Afraid of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe." Surprisingly though, they hadn't played a single track off their last record, Good Morning, Magpie. Just before they reach the end of their set, they play one more off Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon--"My Hill." It wasn't a song I expected them to play for the pop-punk crowd, but they didn't seem to be turned off by it. Even if they were, I'm sure they were brought back when they closed the set with "Comin' Home."

It was a solid set of songs that really get the point across of what Murder by Death are about. It would have been nice to see them stray away just a bit from singles, but there's no misunderstanding over why they didn't. Even without the theatrics of a headlining set, Murder by Death still put on an entertaining show. I hope they acquired some more fans and will continue to pick up more on the road. Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, is out now (you can check out our review HERE). Pick it up. Learn the songs, and join them on tour and have a great time!

It's rare that you attend a show that feels like it has the weight of history riding on it, but seeing At The Drive-In play what is likely to be the final show of their reunion tour, 12 years after they originally split, certainly felt in that category.

The queue outside London's semi-legendary Brixton Academy on August 28th was the largest I've ever seen it at the venue, snaking all the way around to the murky street behind the club. Security was tight, with men and women being separated off for checking and random searches. Stumbling inside, the venue was already packed to the back walls with half an hour still to go before stage time.

A lot was riding on this show: while the band had already played the Reading and Leeds festivals the previous weekend, this was their first club show on UK soil in over a decade and the crowd were baying with excitement. Internet rumours had already warned me of the possibility that guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez might appear less-than-interested onstage, with cynics branding the tour "at the cash in". There was an air of anticipation and restlessness, then, when the boombox banner finally came floating down over the stage and The Flight of the Valkyries started over the PA.

Striding onstage to a hero's welcome came the five piece, Tony Hajjar warming up with some deafening rolls across his drumkit. Brixton Academy, for all its history, isn't famed for its sound quality, and even in these opening notes the sound felt overly laden with presence and reverb. Still: this was At The fucking Drive-In. 

Kicking off with - what else - "Arcarsenal", perhaps the definitive album opener, the crowd instantly became a maelstrom of whirling bodies. Almost immediately somebody climbed up and began crowdsurfing down the front: don't they know anything about this band? I wondered. If enigmatic frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala noticed, he didn't say anything.

This opener was followed up in quick 1-2 punch fashion by a furious "Pattern Against User". I was struck by the absurdity of Bixler's lyrics for perhaps the first time in my decade plus of listening to the band - while it's no revelation that his wordsmithery has always veered on the wrong side of absurd, it takes things to an entirely new level to hear a drunken moshpit veteran bellow lines like "the opposition / can't feel the tentacle reach / suction cup the numb arms of the elderly" directly into your ear canal.

As this second song finished and everybody paused to wipe their sweating brows and figure out where their left shoe ended up, I stopped to wonder whether I was actually enjoying myself. In the early 2000s I was an avid collector of At The Drive-In bootlegs, having missed my chance to see them live first time around. I was intimately familiar with the standards of their live shows and could bore you to sleep with my opinions on, say, their performance of "Sleepwalk Capsules" in Bochum, Germany during 2001. This show wasn't like those shows.

Omar, as I'd feared, had spent the duration of the first few songs barely even facing the audience or acknowledging the crowd (a crowd which had, not to put too fine a point on it, paid over £30 ($47) for these tickets - breaking my own personal rule of never spending more than £20 ($31) on tickets for a show, for moral reasons). While it was a welcome change to hear him actually nailing the songs on his guitar, as opposed to some of his more chaotic live performances during the band's heydey, he could not have looked any less interested in what was going on. To Cedric's credit, he did what he could to throw himself around the stage and perform mic-stand acrobatics. Carrying the entire weight of the stage performance on his own must have been a real effort, particularly with the energy vacuum of Omar sucking all of the spontaneity out of proceedings in the corner of the stage.

A pleasant surprise came next, however: "Lopsided" from 1998's In/Casino/Out was beautifully rendered and hushed the somewhat aggressive crowd, whose need to thrash around markedly dropped off when pre-Relationship of Command songs were played.

(Photo by taylesrose)

Cedric mixed in some stage banter during the show, making British pop culture references to TV soaps and Doctor Who. He even had a brief onstage rant: against, er, people focusing on Facebook trivia. While I agree with the sentiment, it was a far cry from the man who used to rail against stagediving and "meathead" moshing. You grow old and you calm down...

Sound was muddy at times, with the intricacies of many of the RoC-era songs suffering from, perhaps, the sheer size of the Academy's main room. Some songs gained extended jam outros or middle sections, clearly a hallmark of the later bands spawned by the split. These were amongst some of the more interesting parts of the show as the band seemed to reimagine these songs for the first time in a decade, rather than simply go through the motions of one last hurrah.

While the setlist (below) was RoC-heavy, we also got the stark, raw beauty of "Napoleon Solo", rendered more poignant with Bixler's new vocal style, presumably informed by years of singing (not shouting) in The Mars Volta. This did have the effect of rendering some of the later-period songs a little less strongly, with the much-vaunted "Cosmonaut" (clip below) losing a little of its urgency as a result.

After a quick break they returned to the stage for another double punch: "Catacombs", followed by, of course, "One Armed Scissor". Guitarist Jim Ward introduced the final song with a brief eulogy to the band's career, explaining that they considered this show "the final show of the Relationship of Command tour", leading some to speculate after the show that this signified the end of the band's reunion. He finished by proclaiming his love for the rest of the band as "more than life itself", and with a lump in his throat, thanked us for coming out. Omar barely acknowledged the warmth of this heartfelt outpouring, although Cedric managed to beam with, perhaps, pride as his longtime compatriot closed the show.

Twitter reaction after the show ended was mixed: some fans claimed it was the greatest show they'd ever seen, while others proclaimed their sadness that it wasn't the band they'd once loved. 

Myself, I'm unsure. I think the notion that a "classic" band should be expected to reform a decade after their apex and continue on as normal is problematic. If Omar and Cedric had flung themselves around onstage like it was the Jools Holland Show all over again, critics would've described them as poor imitations. Nobody wanted to see a poor man's pastiche of a fabled At The Drive-In show, but equally, people expected to see a band enjoying themselves and celebrating a discography of genre-defining music. What I felt I got was a band finally, fatally, persuaded into stepping onto the comeback trail. For all Omar's apparent disinterest, he was presumably interested enough to be paid to play the shows. 

(Photo by Rahul Kukreja)

 The price of a ticket doesn't pay for the artist to become a performing monkey, but it does buy an experience, a shared occurence, a moment linked between artist and audience. Nursing my pit bruises as I walked home from the show, I wondered whether I'd had that experience. I'd heard some of my favourite songs performed with the best musical standards possible after 12 years on the shelf, sure. What I didn't get was a sense that I'd done the right thing by shelling out to see one of the bands I never thought I'd get to cross off my list. 

They say you should never meet your heroes, but maybe those heroes should take some responsibility, too.

Setlist

• Arcarsenal 
• Pattern Against User 
• Lopsided 
• Sleepwalk Capsules 
• Napoleon Solo 
• Quarantined 
• Enfilade 
• Rascuache 
• 198d 
• Chanbara 
• Metronome Arthritis 
• Pickpocket 
• Non-Zero Possibility 
• Cosmonaut 

Encore

• Catacombs 
• One Armed Scissor

Fun. are back on the road selling out shows again. This time however, they didn't just sell out one show, but 3 nights at the illustrious Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Wow. This band has come a long way. Would they be able to fill the venue sonically as much as with their fans?

A full house at The Wiltern makes it difficult to walk anywhere. The number of people there was a sight to see on its own, and every last one of them awaited Fun.'s presence. The lights dropped and Fun. walk out and jump into the mellow track, "Carry On." I didn't think I'd enjoy this song as an opener as much as many of the other tracks they've opened shows with, but it turned out to be a great way to start the show. The song allowed the crowd to continue to build up some anticipation until the point that they could get rowdy--which hit the moment guitarist, Jack Antonoff, got to his solo. The fans really let loose as the band went into classics, "Walking the Dog" and "All The Pretty Girls."

The night was off to a great start. The audience was in good spirits--minus the occasional obnoxious inebriate. The band was full of energy, full of smiles, and still full of charm. Nate was bouncing across the stage as usual. Jack was on the verge of breaking every single one of his strings, and Andrew never missed a note. They shared some stage banter and even went into an impromtu cover of "December, 1963." However they didn't complete it--despite the fans continuing on with the lyrics.

Fun. jumped back and forth between albums, playing tracks like "At Least I'm Not As Sad" and "Roman Candle" from Aim & Ignite, and songs from Some Nights like, "Why Am I the One?" and "All Alone." The group reworked the fast paced, "It Gets Better," by getting rid of the opening drum machine and utilizing the guitars more for the mid-tempo intro. The band still maintained tradition by having the backing band walk off so Nate, Jack, and Andrew could perform "The Gambler,"--which was dedicated to Jack and Andrew's parents. They did throw in a few surprises though. During the bridge of "Barlights," confetti was shot out from all corners of the room and completely filled the venue. They also went into a cover (a fully planned out one this time) of The Rolling Stones', "You Can't Always Get What You Want." You know, they haven't done a single bad cover over the years. I wonder what they'll do in the future.

Of course, the band couldn't leave without first doing the track that really put them on the map, "We Are Young." It's no surprise that the crowd went wild. After the band had left and returned for their encore, they blared out, "One Foot." Personally, a song I had been looking forward to the whole night. The crowd was causing the ground the shake, but not like they did as when they closed the show with "Some Nights." I've expressed my distaste for the autotune in the past, so I won't get into it, haha. A small highlight of the night was when Nate decided to hit the high note in the bridge on, "oh, come on!" As they closed out the night, balloons rained down, and some fans even decided to take some home as souvenirs.

Everyone had a good time and went home happy. The people attending the remaining nights are in for a treat. If it's 3 sold out nights at The Wiltern now, I can only imagine where this band will be playing the next time they come around. Somewhere they'll surely still pack to the brim no doubt. They've worked hard for their success and they deserve it.

Murder by Death are preparing the release of their 6th studio album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, while celebrating the 10-year anniversary of their first LP, Like The Exorcist, but More Breakdancing. They've been out on the road sharing some new songs with the fans while returning to that first album with songs they haven't played in years. Scene Point Blank weren't gonna miss it!

Here's a band that never ceases to amaze and entertain. In the past--while bands will occasionally play a full album front to back on tour--Murder by Death took it a step further with playing two full lengths in one night. The group always like to have some kind of surprises or theatricality in their shows. They've had dancers, played to a video montage, so I was curious to see what they might have in store for this tour. While there wasn't anything that extravagent, it was still a great show with some awe-inducing moments.

The openers, Ha Ha Tonka and Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons, both fit the bill perfectly. Ha Ha Tonka had a surprisingly short set, but still got the crowd amped up for the night. Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons did a great Tom Waits cover and toyed around a bit with a cover of The Misfits' "Skulls." It goes without saying though that everyone was waiting anxiously for Murder by Death.

The lights dimmed and frontman, Adam Turla, walked out and opened the show himself with the intro to my favorite song, "The Devil in Mexico." Over the years, I've seen MBD fans get more and more rambunctious. In the past, most would just stand around and watch the show. This always baffled my mind. Why was no one singing along?! Fortunately, that wasn't so much the case tonight. The crowd was much more into it and screaming along to the track's closing lyrics, "Someone say a hail mary for this house. Bless the corners and burn the devil out." It brought a smile to my face. The band went into a new song entitled, "No Oath, No Spell," before getting the crowd riled up again with Red of Tooth and Claw's opener, "Comin' Home."

Murder by Death took the time to acknowledge Like the Exorcist, but More Breakdancing's anniversary with, "I'm Afraid of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe." Then the band jumped back to the present with a new song written by cellist, Sarah Balliet. The track, "Lost River," is moody and borrows from Like the Exorcist. Although I love the raucous type of sound they've inherited over the course of their albums--a track like, "Lost River," has me very excited for the new record.

They continued to jump from album to album throughout the set. Playing fist pounding tracks like "Steal Away" and "Sometimes the Line Walks You," while keeping the pace varied with slower and soothing tracks like "Foxglove," "Fuego!," and "King of the Gutters, Prince of the Dogs." A little bit halfway through the set they threw in songs they hadn't been playing too often as of late such as "The Desert is On Fire," "Boy Decide," and "Intergalactic Menopause." The crowd went crazy for "Brother" as they always do, and sparks really flew when they played, "Dynamite Mine." Literally. The latest addition to the band, keyboardist Scott Bracket, rummaged up some kind of contraption that would have sparks flying like working in a steel mill. The band closed with "Those Who Stayed"--although they did not do the medley of evil. Womp.

The band came back for 2 more. Another song they had stopped playing for awhile, "Killbot 2000." It's as good as ever. My happiest moment of the nigght was when they closed with "The Devil Drives." A song they hadn't previously played before this tour. This is arguably my second favorite song and it was wonderful to finally see it performed live. What a joy to have my favorite MBD tracks serve as the bookends for the set.

The band will be back on the road in the Fall supporting Say Anything, so if you missed them this tour or won't be able to make any of the remaining dates--I suggest you catch them on that tour. Just because they won't be headlining doesn't mean they won't put on one great performance. Also, be sure to pick up their new album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, when it's released on September 25th.