Pete Wentz might be hosting an episode of WWE Raw! Imagine the possibilities. Randy Orton could come out and hit him with the RKO as punishment for writing “Golden”. Pete could be made an honorary member of Degeneration X for writing songs about “the friction in your jeans”. He and the Undertaker could swap tips on the proper application of eyeliner. WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? GO SET YOUR TIVO!!1!11!!!ONE!!

But there has always been one part of the Fall Out Boy package that has been quite disappointing. The live show. Whenever I went to a Fall Out Boy show, I always left shrugging and accepting the fact that they weren’t that great of a live act. Pat’s vocals were pitchy. The instrumentation seemed slightly mistimed. Pete’s on stage banter was annoying. There was always something to gripe about.

Key word here is was. This time around, the boys seem to have gotten their act together. Pat’s soulful vocals were a show highlight. The musicianship was tight and punchy. Pete’s stage banter was… well somethings never change (But he did give WBRU a shout-out from the stage which caused the entire row of WBRU DJs to go nuts in the stands).

The show kicked off with album opener “Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes” with dudes wearing full riot gear lending support on the drums during the songs intro. My one gripe about the show was the beginning. It was based on some sort of social commentary about the state of the economy. The band members came out in full suits and there were weird video packages that mashed up shots of people rioting with shots of crestfallen CEOs. Needless to say when rich rock stars try explain bad economic times to 14 year old girls from Connecticut whose parents can afford expensive concert tickets, the message is usually falls on deaf ears. Luckily the band abandoned their attempt at avant garde performance art pretty early on in the set.

From there the show was a straight up rock show, with the requisite guitar spins and light up instruments. I had read early coverage of this tour in which the band talked about how they would be cutting back on their staging to save money and run down ticket prices. It also seems that the time they would have spent picking out pyro, they devoted to rehearsing. The pop-punk standard-bearers displayed and tightness to their song spinning that I had yet to see on an FOB stage. Not to mention that Pat Stump’s powerful vocal ability punched through the barrage of power chords and drum beats to grab the audience and force them to jump around. As anyone in attendance that night will attest, we weren’t complaining. The band regaled the crowd with forceful versions of the tear-jerk anthems that made them famous, while also delving into the more self-aware new stuff on their latest albums. All in all the reigning scene kings proved once again why they are still America’s sweethearts (zing!).

This was actually a big show so I’m going to do one sentence reviews of the other bands on the show too. You’re Welcome:

Hey Monday: A lot of fun.

Cobra Starship: Not my cup of tea, but Gabe’s energy can really carry a set.

All Time Low: Astoundingly good; watch for these guys next year.

Metro Station: Atrocious.

Fall Out Boy Set List:

Disloyal Order of the Water Buffalo

Thriller

A Little Less 16 candles A Little More Touch Me

Sugar We’re Going Down

This Ain’t a Scene It’s an Arms Race

I Don’t Care

Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet

I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me

Grand Theft Autumn

What A Catch Donnie

Coffee’s For Closers

She’s My Winona

The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

Beat It (Cover)

America’s Suitehearts

Thnks Fr th Mmrs

Tiffany Blue

Dance Dance

Saturday

*Don’t worry I’ve since bought a legitimate copy, and even got it signed by the band at their last show. Win-win-win.

I would say that the band’s on-stage antics made it easy to get into. When the lights went out, the alt rock vets took the stage, opening with some bizarre house/techno song while lead singer Stephan Jenkins sported some sort of black devil robe. I know that’s not descriptive but you’d have to see it to get it.

For a band that’s primarily known for having that one song in the 90s (a little ditty called “Semi-Charmed Life”) it was nice to listen to the their set and realize that in the intervening years they have amassed a respectable catalog of hits including tracks like “Graduate”, “Jumper”, “How’s It Gonna Be?”, “Losing a Whole Year”, and “Non Dairy Creamer”.

It took Jenkins’ on-stage banter to get me to also appreciate how great the moment was. Jenkins commented on how unreal it was to be playing a show in the middle of town (this year’s venue was the Bank of America Skating Center, right Downtown). After he mentioned that, I couldn’t help but look around and realize how the concert series had come full circle. Every venue we’ve put a concert into has had its unique characteristics, but it had been almost four years since we had tried to put one in the heart of downtown Providence.

There is something incredibly cool about peering around not just at the crowd of people that came for a rock show but also those that didn’t. The pleasantly surprised families that peer over at the stands to see what all the fuss is about. The startled commuters just trying to catch their bus. And all the freeloaders that watched from out behind the back fence of the venue (putting on concerts isn’t cheap fools, buy a ticket!)

When the sun set, the music slowed, and my buzz subsided I realized this show was probably as good of an alt rock send-off as anyone could want.

For a review of the two openers, The Upwelling and Wild Light, see greg’s post.

Getting super drunk in advance of this was probably a real good idea. Because walking into Lupos and seeing a big screen labeled “Countdown ’til Death” with numbers slowly rolling back to zero would probably not have been a good thing to experience sober.

For the uninitiated, GWAR is a veteran shock metal band whose backstory involves some 20 million year old ice aliens or something. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that these dudes take the stage in full demon outfits and play ear-shredding metal, while only taking breaks to decapitate mock-ups of prominent political figures and the occasional other mutant. It is nuts. Also they are constantly dousing the frantic crowd with gallons of fake blood. That’s why that first sentence makes sense.

I don’t have a set list. There’s no way I could have stood still long enough to write anything down. In fact, the only times I remember being still in that crowd were when a crowd surfer would fall on my neck (hence the bruises) and the crowd would pulse around us to make sure we weren’t dead. Not that it mattered because I’m not even sure any of those songs were in English. Like I said I think they are supposed to be aliens or some shit.

At this point I’m not sure I need to say whether or not the show was good. If you’re the type of person that would enjoy getting crowd-surfed over by metalheads while a team of monsters sprays fake blood on you and permanently destroys your hearing in the process, come see GWAR next time they’re in town. If not, my review of the recent Fall Out Boy should be on its way soon.

I allowed twitter to eat up 20 minutes of my day today and decided to blog about it.

First up yes the title is true.

Second of all apparently Diddy is also a big fan of Seth Rogen’s new film Observe and Report. Except he is not a fan of spelling Seth Rogen’s name correctly. Har har.

Third of all Seth Rogen, Mark Hoppus, Pete Wentz, and Alex Gaskarth (lead singer of All Time Low) are currently e-laughing about how people need to “twitter in 3d” (i.e. enter public spaces and just start shouting what they are doing/thinking) to poke fun at how ridiculous twitter is. It’s actually kind of funny until you realize they are making these jokes on twitter. Irony over.

Fourth of all, turn off your computer and go read a book.

That last one has nothing to do with the rest of the story. Except for everything.

My late 90s record collection is having a field day with this one. Buzznet is reporting that Blink 182 (yes, that Blink 182) is planning to take pop-punk legends Weezer out on tour when the band reforms this summer.

Words cannot express. This news combined with the rehearsal list Mark released of the songs he’s practicing in anticipation of touring this summer has me in quite the tizzy. Get pumped. Immediately.

Pic grabbed from flickr user freschwill

Billy Corgan took the internets today penning a 2400+ word post on the official Smashing Pumpkins website, outlining his future plans. Apparently the bald wonder is feeling ambitious. In the post he claimed that he has hopes to:

- write and record 44 new songs and release them online one by one culminating in some sort of mega box set

- Release an “art movie” to correspond with this new album/box set
- find a new drummer
- start 2 new bands
- continue with solo work
- Settle the triad of lawsuits entangling his former label, his former bandmates, and himself over the Gish sessions
- Sleep (ha! jk y’all I made that one up)

All of Billy’s aspirations of productivity makes me feel shitty because the only constructive thing I’ve done today is write this blog post.

Thanks to flickr user Graham Racher for the retro pic.

Remember that movie where The Dude from the Big Lebowski jumps inside a computer and rides around on motorcycles made of lights or kilobytes or something? Me neither. But Daft Punk is going to be writing the soundtrack for the sequel. Rejoice!

According to my housemate who majored in computer sciences and plays WoW all day, Tron was about a computer programmer that physically entered his work’s computer system and then had to compete against some computer programs or rival programmers (sorry about the uncertainty but my housemate had to go on a quest and subsequently became very unhelpful). It’s probably a good fit for a pair of guys that write trippy electronica based almost exclusively around the idea that they are secretly robots to be scoring a movie premised on people being able to interact with the programs inside their computers. Also their respective fans seem oddly similar:

If god had wanted grown men to dress this way he wouldn’t have invented puberty.

Their fan bases not withstanding, the union of Tron and Daft Punk does mean one incredibly awesome thing: MIDNIGHT MOVIE SCREENING DANCE PARTY!!!!!!

Thanks to flickr users (in order) Aubrey Arenas, AnthonyCarlucci, and mozzwald for their pics.