Brand New, The Troubadour, July 18

So, I either overestimated the traffic into LA, or my circumvention of the anaheim into Hollywood traffic worked, either way i was in LA in about two and a half hours...leaving me with a lot of time to spare. I killed some time, grabbed some food and swung by the venue at around 5:30 to see there was already a line, and a much longer one that I'd have thought for it being so early. With about 50 people already in front of me, i took my spot in line to get into the troubadour.


Eons later, the line was condensed and then the security decided to move all the people whose actual names were on the will call list to another line...except the entire show was will call, and confusion was abound. after it was all settled we all got into the same line same places, and went into the venue...


i was absolutely sure that someone would be in my facorite troubadour spot, which is stage right to the side so as not to be bothered by hordes of people, but still be right up front. This night, brand new's lighting called for a light fixture to be placed in a perfect spot, placing a huge speaker on the floor in the perfect spot allowing me to get a better view and have zero people behind my due to a poll and still not having to deal with a million people.

ANYWAY Dios went on, and were much better than i had anticipated. the coolest part was during their second to last song, the keyboardist threw in a riff from "You Still Believe in Me".

Well, Brand New finally took the stage, and opened with The Shower Scene. While it seemed a little slow and not exactly right, it was still fun. Then, they played one note of Quiet Things, and the crowd responded with a brilliantly loud cheer...I didn't even know that song was identifiable by one note. After that they played sic transit gloria into sowing season. they played three new songs. they also played, not in order, tommy gun (with an awesome intro reminiscent of god and devil or newer stuff), jaws theme swimming, jude law, mix tape, seventy times seven, flying at tree level, jesus, and degausser. the god and devil stuff was played the best and sounded awesome. they closed by playing you won't know, with the bassist and drummer leaving during the end but the (3) guitarists remaining on stage for an extended outtro, leaving jesse there in the end, who played soco amaretto lime by himself.

great time!