Punk/Screamo
Check Out This VictorStream Player courtesy of Victory Records. It has some stuff you may not have heard before as well as some classics that I’m sure you’ll all know! Check the Metal & Hardcore page for another VictorStream Player!St. James Hotel -- You Are Here
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Alright, so -20 points for such a lame title, but apparently there is a real-life St. James Hotel, so I didn’t want to say something about ’staying at the St. James Hotel’; which could easily be taken the wrong way.
I can’t help but think these guys are a combination of The Starting Line’s earliest stuff and Sublime. They are really uptempo, but also have that loose sound that seems like it could turn ‘jammy’ at any moment. The same kind that one would find at a house party -- the exact type of scenario that made Sublime famous (thank you, VH1 Behind the Music).
That’s not a polite way of saying these guys sound like crap -- definitely not the case. You Are Here, St. James Hotel’s six song EP, expresses a lot of diversity. ‘Eighty-Three’ is a pretty straightforward song and it almost sounds like there are ska elements thrown in there. You’ll definitely notice what I mean about the ska elements when you hear the intro to ‘Cadillac Blindside’ (embedded below). ‘Western Towns’ even has a nice intro that’s about a minute-and-a-half long, thrown in there to keep you on your toes. The way that Ryan (lead singer) does the vocals in that track are almost reminiscent of Thrice.
I think the easiest thing to say about these guys is that they describe themselves as Acoustic Punk. If that -- or the artists I compared them to above -- peak your interest, give these guys a look. All six songs from their EP are posted on their MySpace page. They are definitely a cool, genre-bending example of how to take a sound and make it your own.
Now since it’s quite far away from the title, I can fulfill anyone’s need for a cheesy line: check into the St. James Hotel and listen to some great tunes while you are here.
For more information on St. James Hotel, visit the St. James Hotel MySpace Page.
St. James Hotel -- Cadillac Blindside
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Show Review: New Found Glory 10th Anniversary Tour -- 2/26/10
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Like most other people who got into pop-punk at the end of the 90’s, there are primarily two albums which got me into the genre: Blink 182’s Enema of the State and New Found Glory’s New Found Glory.
When I saw the announcement that New Found Glory was doing a 10 year anniversary tour behind that very album, I got tickets that same day.
The ages of people in the crowd ranged from 14 or 15 years old all the way through people who were probably just over 30. I was definitely happy to see people in the former age range coming to see a staple of this scene and understanding where bands like All Time Low got their influences.
The first band to really get the crowd’s blood flowing was Saves the Day. One fan in particular must have had his blood flowing a little more than everyone else -- he tried to get on stage three times in a matter of minutes, and was promptly hauled off-stage. Chris Conley, Saves the Day’s lead singer, was quick to commend the fan with “Congats dude, you’re an idiot!“; much to the amusement of the audience.
Early in New Found Glory’s set, Chad Gilbert (who recently just released 3 free tracks to download as his side project, What’s Eating Gilbert?) commended everyone in the audience on making it to the show despite the poor weather. Apparently when they played in North Carolina, the snow stopped a lot of people from coming out.
Personally, there was no way I was missing this show.
In fact, with the amount of people at the venue, I’m not sure if anyone didn’t have that mindset.
New Found Glory’s set had a classic punk-rock feel to it. They tore through their entire self-titled album at breakneck speed; stopping maybe three times in between songs. One of those times was for Chad to wish ‘bon voyage’ to his thyroid, which you can see at the beginning of the ‘Vegas’ video clip embedded below.
In comparison to the fan above who was trying to get a little too interactive during Saves the Day’s set, the fans that wanted to interact with Jordan Pundik (lead singer) were well behaved and just really wanted a chance to sing along with him. Jordan was more than happy to accommodate the request, letting people have their say in the majority of songs they played. At one point, one of the fans crowd-surfed onstage and actually knocked him over…but he took it in stride and never missed a beat.
Following a very brief break after the completion of ‘Ballad For the Lost Romantics’, the band re-emerged. If the crowd needed any help getting excited about their return, Jordan did the trick by screaming “Alright Pittsburgh! Are you ready for round two?!”
The guys powered their way through five more tracks, spanning from Sticks and Stones through Not Without A Fight: ‘Understatement’, ‘Something I Call Personality’, ‘Catalyst’, ‘Don’t Let Her Pull You Down’, and ‘My Friends Over You.’
For anyone who may be curious, yes, Ian Grushka did manage to get shirtless…it took him all of two songs to do so.
I have a friend who said he was going to six -- yes, SIX -- dates on this tour. At first I couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing…now I’m pretty disappointed I didn’t get in on that plan as well.
Head on over to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Fan Page to check out the photos of the show, and more photos and videos from other concerts as well!
***Note: You do not need to have a Facebook account to be able to browse that page and view the photos and videos.
If you want a better look at the videos (the first half of ‘Vegas’ is a little dark because Chad requested the lights be turned down), hover your mouse over the video screen, and then click the ‘facebook’ logo in the top left hand corner when it appears. That will redirect you to the video on Facebook, which has a larger screen size for the video.
If you choose to embed any of the photos or videos from the show, please give credit where credit’s due.
