Chris Conley of Saves The Day - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
by jeff barringer
club kingsnake staff
Saves The Day
Hometown: Princeton, N.J.
http://www.savestheday.com
Saves The Day Concert Photos
Thursday April 10th, 2008
La Zona Rosa (Austin, Texas)
Also:
Armor For Sleep,
Set Your Goals,
Metro Station,
Lydia
I started my night at La Zona Rosa, but had to miss the middle band on the bill to scoot over and cover The Mars Volta around the corner. I almost didn't come back. The fact that I had to pry myself from the Volta's set is more a factor of how blown away I was, and not reflection on the quality of the bands at LZR.
In almost a repeat of the previous night La Zona Rosa had packed the venue with a multi-band touring bill, booked as the Bamboozle Road Show, with a slew of neat bands to check out.
Opening the set was the band Lydia out of Gilbert, Arizona, which has a richly layered sound. A dark, rainy day gray kind of music, not so cheerful or pop driven. Big sweeping epics of angst. These were probably my favorites of the night and it will be interesting to see how they mature out over time. Their debut album is out on the label HourZero and is called
This December; It's One More and I'm Free. I think it's worth checking out based on their MySpace cuts and their live set.
Metro Station at La Zona Rosa - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
Metro Station was an interesting Hollywood California band whose sound is almost the complete obverse of Lydia's, a bouncy synth driven pop-rock fest with 3 minute songs, catchy melodies. Power-pop-punk with plastic sunglasses for the crowd at Hollywood and Vine. These guys have a very slick well polished sound and it's pretty clear their handlers over at Columbia Records have groomed them well. Look for a neat song placement in one of the "trendy" TV shows coming to a flat screen near you soon.
I slipped out at this point to check out the Mars Volta set so I have no idea what Set Your Goals was like.
I did make it back in time to catch the New Jersey based Armor For Sleep set. One of Sire Records bands, I had a chance to catch these guys play before back in 07 playing with The Academy Is and Rocket Summer. With more of a rock edge than Metro Station, they play a more traditional power-punk with the requisite slow songs to make the girls scream. Fronted by Ben Jorgensen, who also makes the girls scream, they remind me of a lot of other bands in this genre. Not really my thing, but they sounded good and the audience spent most of their time screaming or swooning.
Saves The Day ended the show and this New Jersey band is also one of the more traditional power-punk bands. With songs that are a bit more poppy than Armor For Sleep's, this is another band seemingly aiming for top forty airplay in a big way. Guitar driven three minute songs, looking for that Tiger Beat audience, with just enough slow songs to make the girls weak in the knees. These guys have an extended history going back to 1997, with lots of personnel and style changes along the way. They have a good sound, but their stage performance left me feeling kind of flat.
Thanks go out to Direct Events and La Zona Rosa for the hook-up.
Technorati Tags:
Austin,
Saves The Day,
Armor For Sleep,
Metro Station,
Lydia,
La Zona Rosa