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Taking Back Sunday
Angels And Airwaves
Head Automatica
The Subways
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Nokia Live
Grand Prairie, TX
7/16/2006
By: Caz* Bevan
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The Nokia Theatre seems to be a favorite of most bands
touring through the Dallas metro area. It's large, excessive
and sharply elevated. It would make anyone feel like a
rockstar. Any band seems small on the extensive stage,
however, every band tonight made good use of the
space.
The Subways first straight from the UK - if you didn't like
their songs you could at least enjoy their accents. The band
loved the stage and had amazing presence. Their sound
came across bold and strong through the oversized sound
system. I found myself with an extra skip in my step as I
was walking around, attaining all appropriate information for
the show, getting situated with wristbands, and all the while
watching and tapping my foot. If only traffic had been
smoother, I'd could have been dancing.
Dancing however, doesn't seem to be of any interest to
today's show-goers. I don't understand this. They're kids.
They should be carefree and out there, dancing like
nobody's watching. I watched the crowd as Head Automatica
tried, from song to song, to up the ante and make the crowd
move. They failed miserably through no fault of their own!
Head Automatica's stage performance was perfect as could
be imagined. Frontman Daryl Palumbo would strut the stage,
clapping his hands and adding reminiscent Glassjaw screams
to popular songs like "Beating Heart Baby." He'd run from
stage right to stage left and the crowd just stood. I was
perplexed! I thought to myself, "Don't they know who Head
Automatica is?" Alas, still listed as 'soon to be discovered' by
these fans, the crowd response was no fault of Head
Automatica and their flawless rock performance.
Next on stage came Tom DeLonge's new project, Angels And
Airwaves. The crowd seemed equally divided in who they
were there to see - Angels And Airwaves or Taking Back
Sunday. Hundreds of fans sang along, yet still no one
moved. There was no swaying and a vague amount of
clapping. Even the over-agers with 21+ real IDs should have
store-bought confidence by now, but not even the tipsy,
red-faced, show-going elders were dancing. This crowd
sucked despite Angels And Airwaves aerobic
performance.
Tom DeLonge can't dance and he can't sing without the help
of vocalizers that he excuses as some new wave,
techno-pop feature (read: wannabe David Gahan vocal
effects) but he can talk himself into a crowd: "You can do
anything you fucking want with your life. With the slightest
risk you can be anything. You might change your world if not
the world in itself. Are you with me?!?"
blink-182 prided themselves on playful B.S., so it's no
wonder that Tom DeLonge would be B.S.-ing still with a
British-seeming accent - not only when he sings, but even
when he's announcing to his fans, "We're not just another
pop band...." Oh really? The only diversity here was in the
light show. Still, the crowd was made to beg for each song
as if each were an encore. No doubt this show though, with
all its incapacities, would still be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity for a die-hard fan.
This goes the same for any Taking Back Sunday fan. Over
the years, Taking Back Sunday has impressed their fans
time and time again with each new album. However, their
live performances have, in the past, been lacking. Practice
may not make perfect, but at least it makes things
better.
Frontman Adam Lazzara has a charismatic stage presence.
Let's face it, his album vocals involve a lot of passionate
note holding that would be near impossible for most anyone
to do live, despite moving around on stage. Adam has
crafted more confidence into his vocals and perhaps learned
a little breathing technique. The vocal harmonies are
compelling. Fan or not, Taking Back Sunday will draw you in
with the familiarity of heart break and passion while allowing
their fans to live vicariously through them.
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