Dawes / Deertick / Middle Brother

- I started this as a comment but was getting too verbose.

- Overall rating 5 of 10. Deertick was good but their set was disjointed by that kid vasquez that sung two or three songs with them. Dawes...

- ...Taylor Goldsmith (the lead singer of Dawes); this kid is grade-A dousche, top of the line almost vomit-inducing dousche. Probably the easiest front man to hate that I have ever seen in my whole life. I know there is a fair amount of acting that goes into your persona as a front man but everything he did was so effing unauthentic. It made me wonder about McCauley and his "act" - the major difference is that McC (i) seems authentic (if he isn't already) and (ii) his persona is more of "I'm having a good time and I hope you are too." and not "I'm a rock and roll god, bow down to me." I think it has a lot to do with humility and being secure about yourself. I wanted to throw tomatoes at him. Anyway...

- The strange thing is that I enjoyed the Dawes set and his guitar solos (he really is a good guitarist) and their songs for the most part (to the extent that you can enjoy something coming from someone you hate). I will never buy one of their cds and will probably never listen to their shit again and won't go see Deertick if they are playing with Dawes.

- Old Shoes was really not that great, not sung well and sort of awkward with that skinny kid up on stage...but it really felt good. I could not stop smiling. Maybe because it's such a good song that it holds up no matter what or maybe just the whole situation (his old friend that actually wrote the song coming up to sing with him but being so nervous, etc.) had a good vibe.

- Other highlight was that song that Ian sings (the second one he sang last night) that I still do not know the name of. McCauley looked like Morley Safer from 60 Minutes...seconds from the grave.

- On being up on the balcony: sound was noticeably a lot worse than it was on the floor but the line of sight was better and it was a bit like having an on stage type view of the show. Being able to see them move around and adjust their instruments was really cool and made it more real. We also had this great view of this guy in the front row that was going bananas the whole time. Probably mid-40's, tossing his head around, reaching out to touch the band, moshing a little.

- They get a weird crowd. Preppy college kids to should-be-living-under-the-basement-stairs freaks.

- Millburg and Collyer in the same conversation is top notch. Millburg had the quote of the night which will suck in print but it was after Adam, Troops, and Collyer told the story about the MMJ show in CT where Collyer puked and was shirtless after drinking the Jack Daniels. Collyer says, "I just thought, it's only Jack Daniels what's the worst that can happen?" and Millburg says the same thing but echoes out the happen..."happen happen happen" like you would see in a movie scene from the night before that quickly cuts to the next scene where someone is dead or in the hospital.

- I dropped "verbose" up top for you Colls.