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Monday, April 20, 2009

Due to a mix-up with a some sort of wedding, the original openers Titus Andronicus couldn’t make it. In place of the highly touted buzz band was Philadelphia’s own Dave Hause of the Loved Ones. For the majority of Hause’s set, he had me in his pocket. He covered “Can’t Hardly Wait” by the Replacements, he played some of the best Loved Ones songs and he played one good original song and one great one. Things took a nosedive when he kicked into a new song, supposedly called “Pray for Arizona.” “Arizona” used the same exact progression and melody as The Gaslight Anthem’s “Meet Me By The River’s Edge.” In fact, you could sing the Gaslight song right on top of “Arizona” and you’d think it was perfect. Somewhat of a bummer for someone so beloved.

Ben Nichols led his newly expanded crew to the stage and immediately launched into “Bikeriders,” which was their only soundcheck. The band started “Nights Like These” and didn’t take a breath through both a new song from their upcoming LP and their amazing cover of Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle,” the latter which obviously sent the crowd (I’d wager 75% were too young to have seen Jawbreaker) into a conniption fit of dancing and singing.

The band is full of characters, but the main focus is still Nichols. He exudes a kind of cowboy cool with his whiskey soaked voice and his barroom poetry about the women who he loved, the friends he lost and the bottles that he’s drank in his lifetime (want a good example, check out this lyric from a new song: “I still taste that god awful perfume you wore”). The records are great, but nothing can compare to seeing this band right now; fresh out of the studio and it shows. They’re like a jack in the box preparing to leap out and attack all comers.

The defining moment in the set was definitely “Slow Dancing” from the album Tennessee. “Smoking these cigarettes more than I should/I can’t stop shaking and that can’t be good/I would forget you if I only could/Think about anything else.” Talk about beautifully heartsick. Nichols crooned into the microphone like a punk rock Jeff Tweedy who’s been listening to too many Tom Waits records, and that is fine by me.