"This show feels really intimate … like I'm touching you in a weird place," frontman of the emo band Say Anything, Max Bemis, said of the group's Nov. 8 concert. Though he was on stage in front of hundreds of fans at the House of Blues, the performance indeed felt personal, like the singer was serenading each one of us.
From the first chorus of "Crush'd," off of the band's 2009 self−titled release, the audience was captivated. With Bemis' kind of stage presence, it's hard to take your eyes off him. Though he isn't your typical skinny emo singer with floppy hair, his chubby stomach and slightly awkward mannerisms render his delivery more genuine. Hands down the most animated performer of the night, he moved around the whole stage and brought both hands into motion as he robotically clapped to the beat.
Perhaps the reason he is so delightful to watch is that he always seems moments away from a full−blown freak out, teeming with frenetic anxious energy — at one point falling to the floor and finishing a chorus lying down on the stage. His awkward dancing, reminiscent of something you might see at a high school dance, made the confessional lyrics ring true.
Throughout Say Anything's set, the energy of the crowd was palpable. Through new and old material, including the song "Colorblind" off of the band's first full−length album, "Baseball: An Album by Say Anything" (2001), the crowd was singing along.
High points included the commercial hit "Alive with the Glory of Love" (2004), a semi−biographical song about how Bemis' grandparents met during the Holocaust. Yet even with such heavy subject matter, Bemis still kept the crowd dancing with his gusto and by juxtaposing this song with the light−hearted hit "Wow… I Can Get Sexual Too" (2007).
The final song, "Admit It" (2004), was a defiance of hipster pretention and the peak of audience participation. Many, it seemed, could relate to the song's theme, and the whole venue from front row to back was shouting "You are a faker/Admit it!"
The energy of the crowd seemed to fuel Bemis as well. He was visibly flattered that fans appreciated the older selections, repeatedly requesting that they continue to come to shows. Often, he would let the audience sing some of the most clever and emotionally charged lines, such as, "my love was like a food stamp handing it out," from "Less Cute" (2009), charging up the audience even more.
In keeping with this theme of collaboration, Bemis also performed "Crawl" (2009) from side project Two Tongues, along with members of opening bands Motion City Soundtrack (MCS) and Saves the Day. The show was filled with such collaborative efforts from all the performers on tour, enhancing the feeling that audience members were watching the efforts of a bunch of really talented friends. The camaraderie and banter of the performers made the audience feel included in what was happening onstage.
MCS's set included cameos from the other performers. Though lead−singer Justin Pierre was unable to perform due to illness, the show still went on. For most of the original MCS tracks, Kenny Vasoli, former lead singer for The Starting Line and current frontman of Person L, performed on vocals.
Though Person L and the Starting Line undoubtedly share a fan base with the touring bands, Vasoli's acoustic crooning did not mesh well with the highly synthesized MCS songs. In some instances, he simply wasn't on key, though letting the audience sing many of the lyrics lifted some of the burden and kept things engaging. No one seemed let down by the absence of Pierre and his famous dreadlocks, a testament to the catchy beat of the power−pop tunes and the punch of their lyrics.
Chris Conley, lead singer for Saves the Day, took over the final two songs of the MCS set. His voice, which has a higher, clearer timbre, was better−suited than Vasoli's for the highly synthesized songs, and with the band's biggest mainstream hit "The Future Freaks Me Out" (2003), the group was able to keep the audience's energy up.
Conley's performance with the rest of Saves the Day was solid, too. The set list was well−chosen and included a lot of the band's older hits from the albums "In Reverie" (2003) and "Stay What You Are" (2001) as well as several new songs.
Saves the Day's garage−band sound translates well to live performance, with crunchy, thrashing guitars and a raw, unprocessed sound. Although Conley and the other band members were not as animated or interactive with the audience as Bemis was, Conley's delivery was just as earnest. His high−pitched, slightly nasal voice seems the most sincere conveyor of songs about rejection and love lost.
Before this show, I appreciated each of these bands — though different in style — for their intelligent lyricism. But there's something about hearing a whole crowd of people chanting the words that gives them new life.
