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The Menzingers – Chamberlain Waits

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I bought the „I Was Born“ – EP of the Menzingers via I-Tunes in March due to a recommendation and I loved it from the very beginning. So it was absolutely natural that I was looking forward for the full release in April and I ordered directly from Red Scare Industries a small label in Chicago.

The whole album is absolutely awesome. They really rock and I played it quite a lot at work, during diving or during work-out’s in the gym. It’s a fun record and for me it was the most positive surprise of 2010. I wouldn’t have expected to love it that much. I quite hope they’ll stay with Red Scare for a little longer, but as that record was such a success I somehow fear they will end up with a bigger label  for the next album.

My favourite songs of „Chamberlain Waits“ probably are:

  • Who’s Your Partner (strong opener)
  • I Was Born (the beginning reminded me of Alkaline Trio’s Emma, awesome song)
  • Time Tables
  • So It Goes
  • Come Here Often

But as already mentioned there’s no song on the album that is not great.

The tracklist goes as follows:

  1. Who’s Your Partner
  2. I Was Born
  3. Home Outgrown
  4. Deep Sleep
  5. Time Tables
  6. Male Call
  7. Tasker-Morris-Station
  8. So It Goes
  9. No We Didn’t
  10. Rivalries
  11. Come Here Often?
  12. Chamberlain Waits

and by the way..nice that The Menzingers decided to put the song that was responsible for the album’s name at the end of the album and not as obviously common on position one, especially as Chamberlain Waits is a ballad and definitely not prestigious for the album and would have given a wrong impression of the rest.

Unfortunately The Menzingers didn’t tour mainland Europe this year. They only played concerts in the UK and when the UK dates were published it was told that they would play mainland Europe, so I didn’t get a UK ticket for a show. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to see them play live in 2011.

Blog, Concerts

Gaslight Anthem, 11th November 2010, Neu-Isenburg, Germany

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Third Gaslight Anthem show for me this year took place yesterday in Neu-Isenburg (or Eisenburg .. as the Sharks said) and so far it was the best Gaslight Anthem show I ever attended.

It already started with Chuck entering the stage together with the two Alex’s during the set of the Sharks to join them in a cover song.

Chuck’s set together with John Gaunt was great as always. I must admit I can’t get enough of him playing live, it’s always a pleasure to hear his voice.

The Gaslight Anthem started with „The Spirit of Jazz“ & „The Boxer“ and were in a very good mood. Brian was talking a lot and so we had to comfort their Merchguy Danny during the show who seemed to have had a bad day in Munich. Finally my wish came true and at the end of the main set Chuck Ragan joined them on stage for the 59 Sound. When they left the stage for the encore break Chuck stayed on stage and took his acoustic guitar, if I remember right this was the point where I started to scream slightly hysterical..

Brian and John came on stage and Brian told us that he and Chuck are working on some acoustic stuff that is going to be released on several 7 inch vinyls. He told us they’ll be going to tour with this next year September and that they are planning to include some other friends into that line up and will hit Europa with that (please let one of those friends be Dan Andriano aka The Emergency Room…that would be the best thing ever). Finally they played one of those songs „Good Night Irene“. Awesome, awesome.

Perfect last concert of the year for me. Still stoked with a little tinnitus on the right side. In case the setlist shows up somewhere I’ll post it later on.

Setlist

  1. The Spirit of Jazz
  2. The Boxer
  3. We came to dance
  4. The Diamond Street Church Choir
  5. Old Haunts
  6. Old White Lincoln
  7. Even Cowgirls get the Blues
  8. 1930
  9. The Queen of Lower Chelsea
  10. ..
  11. ..
  12. Blue Jeans & White Shirts
  13. ..
  14. Miles Davis & The Cool
  15. Great Expectations
  16. The 59 Sound w. Chuck Ragan
  17. Good Night Irene w. Chuck Ragan & John Gaunt
  18. American Slang
  19. ..
  20. Film Noir
  21. Senor and the Queen
  22. Here’s looking at you kid
  23. The Backseat
Blog, Concerts

Alkaline Trio, 25th of August, London, The Relentless Garage

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Wednesday evening I was in London for a warm-up show of Alkaline Trio. They played in a little venue called The Garage. This was my first UK concert and additionally I was pretty stoked meeting some of the members of the Alkaline Trio fanclub „Blood Pact“.
The opening bands have been „The Exposed“ & „Off With Their Heads“. I hadn’t heard of any of those before and „The Exposed“ had a pretty hard job as starters but had some good tunes. „Off With Their Heads“ were great and when they left the stage and the roadies built up the set for Alkaline Trio we we’re really warmed-up.
There seemed to be some technical problem and Alkaline Trio entered the stage pretty late. They took the stage to „The End“ from „The Doors“ which aroused a very awkward feeling in some people as thoughts of the band splitting up seem to be quite regular. To my great pleasure they didn’t start with „This Addiction“ but with „Armageddon“ which was a really good opener for the show. The setlist was different from the previous European shows:

01. Armageddon
02. Clavicle
03. Emma
04. Dine Dine
05. We’ve had enough
06. Mercy Me (für Rosie)
07. I lied my face off
08. Time to waste
09. My friend Peter
10. She took him to the lake
11. American Scream
12. Sadie
13. Blue Carolina
14. Private Eye (für Matt Steinke – Guitartech)
15. Crawl
16. Goodbye Forever
17. This could be love
18. Radio

Due to the fact that they were already a bit late they skipped the encore break and played on without leaving the stage at all. Curfew was at 11.00 p.m and they had to stick to that which may explain why „Queen of Pain“ which was on the setlist didn’t get get played. I hope there will be a chance to hear this live for me sometime.
The band made an awesome show, one of the best I’ve ever seen from them. Matt Skiba talked a lot to the audience and they seemed to enjoy the time as much as we did. The UK audience was different to the German or Belgium audiences from the European show. They pogoed a lot which was great. I will definitely take the London concerts into my plans for upcoming shows from now on!

I had a really nice time and I have to thank CJ, Scott & Nina for spending it with me. It was nice to meet you all and I hope it hasn’t been the last time we met for such a concert!

Blog, Concerts

Gaslight Anthem, Rocco del Schlacko, Saarbrücken, Germany 13th of August 2010

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To my great pleasure I had won a ticket for a festival called Rocco del Schlacko which took place near Saarbrücken. I had never heard of that festival before and the only reason for travelling there was originally the fact that The Gaslight Anthem were going to perform there.

Rocco del Schlacko is one of the smaller festivals with about 25.000 people. The line up for Friday included Bad Religion and The Hives after The Gaslight Anthem and so this promised to be a great evening.

Indeed it was. The sound was extremely good (never had such a good sound at a festival) and the bands seemed to have fun as well. The only problem was the area the festival is taking place. The ground was quite dusty so it was hard to breath in the front rows or in the circle pits…

Nevertheless I stayed there for The Gaslight Anthem and this was the first time I saw them live and I was more than impressed.  After Pearl Jam definitely one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen!

They played a bunch of songs of the new album and some of the classics from the 59 Sound and to my great pleasure a cover of Pearl Jam’s s“State of Love & Trust“. Absolutely awesome and with closed eyes it was hard to believe that it wasn’t Eddie Vedder standing there on stage. I would have never believed that this is possible but Brian Fellon made it happen… Thanks for a great show…now I’m pretty stoked seeing them again in Cologne and Neu Isenburg this year!

The pictures have been taken with the iphone again…so poor quality…


Concerts

Alkaline Trio Antwerpen, Belgium. TRIX Muziekcentrum 4th Juni 2010

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The last European show (festivals excluded) took place on 4th of June in Antwerp. No question we were going to drive up to it as at this point I was thinking that this would probably be the last show for the whole year in Europe.

The TRIX is a quite tiny venue with no security and no control at the entrance. A pity I didn’t know that before, otherwise I had brought my camera with me and not only that terrible little mobile phone. But that can’t be helped afterwards.

The show was good, but finally it could not be overseen that they seemed to be happy that the tour would be over soon.

Setlist

Private Eye
Armageddon
Emma
Dine, Dine
We’ve Had Enough
Mr. Chainsaw
In Vein
Mercy Me
Crawl
Off The Map
This Addiction
Snake Oil Tanker
Sadie
Blue Carolina
Nose Over Tail
Stupid Kid
97
Fine
Angelfuck (Misfits Cover)
Radio