This past Tuesday I went to see Alkaline Trio and Rise Against at Roseland in NYC. I was excited for the show since I had seen Alkaline Trio before and they are pretty fun.
I didn’t know that Gaslight Anthem was opening and I was kind of bummed that I missed them, but I did hear them as I was walking up to the venue.
I had my tickets at will call because I purchased them earlier in the day and the girl behind the counter was so crazy. She kept screaming other window and I had no idea she was talking to me because there was a group of guys in front of me and it looked like she was talking to them. So I was just standing there not realizing. Then my friend Vanessa, was like “sorry” and we moved to the other window.
Aside from the screaming girl, the show was pretty good. The next band that played was Thrice. I had heard of this band from being mentioned in various newsletters such as Starland Ballroom and Alternative Press magazine. I was interested in hearing what they sounded like, but I was a little disappointed. It seemed that every other song was okay. A lot of the songs sounded very similar. Loud drowned out screaming with not much lyrics. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of screamo but I like it more when there is a little regular singing followed by the screaming. I was trying to get into the band, but unfortunately, they just weren’t my style.
In between the sets as we were waiting for Alkaline Trio to go on I turned over to my right and noticed a guy who looked very similar to my ex. Now mind you I didn’t have a bad break up or anything, its just that I don’t really want to have anything to do with him because we were never friends before we started dating and have no reason to be friends afterward. Upon seeing him and confirming with my friend that it was him I quickly rounded up my friends and proceeded to closer in the crowd. I was kind of pissed to see him because honestly, he ‘s not the type of guy that really goes out. At least he wasn’t when we were dating. Although, now that I think of it one time we had seen Alkaline Trio and he had liked them. I must have blocked this out because it didn’t occur to me that he would be there.
I tried not to let him ruin my night but it was horrible. I started thinking about all the things in the past and it really got to me. It may have also been the fact that I wasn’t really up on the new CD and my mind started to wonder. It was so annoying. Overall, I think that Alkaline Trio rocked the place. They have been around for awhile and it seemed a large group of the people were there to only see them cause the place cleaned out a lot after their set. The crowd even wanted them to do an encore which just seemed odd being that they were in the middle of the show.
When Rise Against came on, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have one of their CD’s on my iPod and I like the songs a lot. The lead singer has a good voice and a good combination of screaming/signing. Overall, I don’t know how I feel about them. They would probably be a better band to just listen too considering they are a little hard to see in person. It may have been different if I knew all the words. The one thing that they did do that was cool was a really long encore. They played like six song; two accoustic and like four hard ones. That was pretty cool. I think that Rise Against was a litte too hard core punk rock for me.
I liked Alkaline Trio A LOT in College. I wasn’t floored when I saw this at this show. There were maybe 5 songs I could sing along with and the set was short. I did enjoy people watching and seeing the young teens push eachother around in the pit like it was there job. It’s funny (to me) that some take it so serious -like maybe they practice their dance moves at home….I guess it’s a “please look at me” situation. But i’ve been there too just not as dumb looking.