Cute Without the 'E' (Cut From the Team)
The 2000's was sort of a shitty decade for... most things. Think
about all the things in the aughts that used to be things that are no longer things but at the time we
totally thought were Things. TRL. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. Trucker hats. On that note, Ashton Kutcher.
These are some things did not weather the test of time.
One thing that did weathered it remarkably well, however, is
TAKING BACK SUNDAY's 2002 masterpiece of an emo record Tell All Your Friends, which
celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The band dedicated an entire
sold-out show at the HoB this past Saturday to that album -- an event that would
have 17-year-old me crapping in my Dickies with excitement. (28-year-old
me was not not excited.)
When I told my roommate where I was off to Saturday night she
looked perplexed and said something like, "People still go to see that band?
What's their audience like now, a bunch of teeny boppers, or what?" To which I
got all aggro and responded something like, "uh, you're a teeny bopper," before
stomping out of the apartment and slamming the door behind me because god, nobody understands me.
But, no, the extremely, manically amped up crowd pressing
towards the stage Saturday was decidedly adult. Seeing this band's 10th anniversary show
was kind of like attending your 10-year high school reunion: everyone looks
familiar...just slightly older and paunchier than you remembered. But, who
cares, because you're all old enough to buy booze now and you guys shared some
really awesome times together. Like, the best times.
And also, did I mention that this album holds the fuck up? It's
still so good, and that's not just because I still haven't quite outgrown my
arrested emo phase. Saturday's show was woefully short because a) it's not that
long an album and b) we all had to clear out of there before 10 pm to make room
for the HoB's "Epic Saturday" dance party but that kind of added to the authenticity.
We were all on curfew and had to get our kicks in while we could. I think we got them.
Bike Scene
TBS opened with a crowd-riling "MakeDamnSure" (Phoenix Best Emo
Song of All Time #6) before getting down to business. They came to play
Tell All Your Friends front to back and that is exactly what they did. (To the
letter -- they didn't even grant us an encore, which was sort of #emo but we all
forgave them because this was the best night our teenage selves never had.)
More of a sing-a-long than a show, it was sometimes hard to hear the actual
band over the dude in the business casual-wear bellowing along to "You Know How
I Do" over my right shoulder and, uh, everyone screaming along tearfully to "You're So Last Summer"
but it was all good because we all <3 this album a lot.
Adam Lazzara disappeared from the stage about halfway through
the show (no worries, the crowd had this thing covered) and made his way
through the crowd to say hello, howyoubeen? I couldn't really see him through all
the flashing of iphones and swooning people in his wake, but I was too busy
tearfully singing along with the Emo Class of 2002 to really mind.
Turns out,
we all still get along just fine.
Latest Slideshows
