So I've posted before about going to see bands just for the nostalgia factor. Seeing Mineral play a show would be the absolute ultimate for this, but I doubt that this will ever happen. The second best band to me would probably be The Get Up Kids. They just released a new album, so I was really on the fence about going at all. I didn't want to go see one of my favorite bands ever just to have my memory of them ruined by...we'll I'll try and explain better as we go. So after researching the setlists of their most recent shows online, I was satisfied that they would play enough of their "classics" for me to impulsively throw down on ticket money. Long story short, the show was really fun. Lots of hand claps and sing alongs which can only be expected from a crowd full of people who have spent the last fourteen years in love with some of the catchiest and most fun teenage angst ridden songs ever written. The only bummer were the new songs. I feel really bad saying that though so let me try and clarify. To the crowd (including me), The Get Up Kids are totally reminiscent of formative years and teenage experiences. I mean, all the lyrics are about formative years and teenage experiences. So it's fun to take a step back in time and fondly recollect those feelings and memories. To the band, I think the situation is significantly different. The band didn't lock themselves away in a high school year book, they grew up just like everyone else...probably more than everyone else really with all the touring and public attention as the "big deal band" of an entire musical genre. So after a long hiatus doing real life stuff, I feel really bad that they would slave away trying to write, record, release and tour on music that I'm sure is much more relevant to the current state of what they're about, just to have drunk dudes that wish they were still in high school yelling "play your old shit!" in the middle of a song (I swear that wasn't me...though I might have been thinking it too). I'm sure the last thing the band really wants to do is play the same ten songs they've been playing for the past fourteen years over and over again. A few times in the show I wondered if they were kind of just over it. I don't really know why I'm getting all introspective writing all this nonsense about the career arc of a band, so here are the pictures from the show. Needless to say, I still love TGUK.
Bass
Keys
Guitar
Chucks
Jim Suptic
two
three
four
five
six
Robert Pope
two
three
four
Ryan Pope
two (note the Steve Zissou looking creeper in the background. That's their keyboard player. I think they're embarassed of him because they made him play the whole show in a dark corner in the back).
Matthew Pryor
two
three
four got me spotted
