Concert Review: Showbread

Alright, as I posted previously Josh and I went to a concert on Thursday night.
Our friend Wyatt and Josh's dad also came along with us.
Josh's dad is an interesting character. I simply don't even know how to begin to describe Tim Jamison. The first thing you must know about him is that he has very bad adult ADD. He is also a very, very large fan of music like you wouldn't believe. I can't stress those two things enough. I remember Josh coming up to me at a concert almost a year ago and in a time of anguish told me, "Micah, I'm so sick of having to explain my dad to everyone that I meet." And that really sums up Tim for you.

The concert was at a venue in downtown Akron called "The Lime Spider". It was odd, all of us had been there before, but never together. I've frequented the bar over the past few years and have seen bands such as Lovedrug, Dead Poetic, the Pits, Family Force 5, and Relient K there. It's really not the greatest place, but I still like it anyways.

We park just a 2-3 minute walk away from the venue and we leave our heavy coats in the car because who wants to be rocking out with a winter coat on? This was not our smartest decision of the evening. We spent the entire walk screaming out random variations of "Holy Crap! Good Lord! It is so freaking cold!" and just stuff like that. We sprinted down the paved hill into the venue and paid our money to get into the Spider. It's odd that our tickets, being under 21, cost us more than Josh's dad by three dollars. I guess they figured that he'll get wasted on drinks and that we won't.

The entry to this place just makes me laugh on the inside every time. You pay your money and the security is amazing! The bouncer makes a giant X on the back of both your hands so they can tell if you've paid or not. I guess there must be something distinctive about this X that makes you unable to draw them yourselves or if he just has an amazing memory to remember if you've paid that night, but either way it makes me laugh. Also, I think he kind of looks like Kim Jong Il.

Josh and Wyatt both brought dinosaur hand puppets to have signed by the members of Showbread to honor the fact that their newest cd is entitled "Age of Reptiles". I didn't bring anything to get signed because that is so immature and plus, all my Showbread paraphenelia had been signed at Purple Door.

The local band that opened up the show was Hey Sandy . They were from Canton and I had never heard of them before and they did very good. They were a lot better than my expectations would have been for them. It also didn't hurt that their lead singer danced like Aaron Weiss and their guitarist reminded me of Jonny Greenwood.

Next up was Tyler Read, a new band signed to Immortal Records. I had at least heard these guys before from MySpace and they had impressed me, but they too surpassed my expectations. The lead singer had great presence and energy and the whole group played with lots of energy and cohesion. I am very excited for their debut cd to come out on April 3rd now.

And then came what we had all come to see, Showbread, and we were excited. (well obviously, we all absolutely love this band, think Josh Dies should run for President, and they have one of our favorite shows too!) They came out in their matching black pants and green shirts to kill us all with their Raw Rock. They opened up immediately straight into Centipede Sisters and continued the killer set for the next 50 minutes. Throughout the set, frontmen Josh Dies and Ivory Mobley gave us little bits of history for Black History Month. How else would I have known that Night Of The Living Dead was the first horror film to have a black leading actor? They merged songs together throughout the night mashing up Oh! Emetophobia! with Stabbing Art To Death if I remember correctly where they went through the first song and then straight into the second half of the second song with no break. It was a great way to keep the show moving, but it confused the heck out of me when I initially tried to figure out what song they were playing. The only real complaints I can muster up about the show is that both Josh's and Ivory's mics were turned down far too low and that they didn't play 'Welcome to Plainfield Tobe Hooper' but that second complaint is just a personal preference. They ended their show with Mouth Like a Magazine, but came out and did Dead By Dawn for a (tremondous) finale. One thing that made that even more amazing was since I was in the front row, Ivory let me use the mic for a sec and since I did the ending for Dead By Dawn, I guess I technically closed out the show which made me feel pretty cool.
This was really a fantastic show and as I await the release of the Tyler Read album, I have some Showbread that I will be listening to for a little bit until then.
Go see these guys if you get the chance, you will not regret it.