Show Review

In the several years I’ve been a fan of Saosin, I’ve seen them play in almost every setting, with their old and new lineups alike. Small clubs, gargantuan auditoriums, and mid-size theaters never seemed to make a difference—they always seemed to rock. Something was strangely different this evening.

Unfortunately, due to the lengthy drive and early time of the show, I missed Fiore. I was admittedly disappointed, seeing as how I’ve heard some of their new material and it’s definitely exciting.

Albeit we missed them, we arrived in time for the incredibly underrated TREOS, whose epic sound and undeniable catchiness combine to form a truly insane experience. Of course, this was the second time of perhaps four times I had seen TREOS, and the second without legendary Casey Crescenzo. Last time, the band was pretty rough and there were patches, or holes, rather, in the vocals—but tonight they seemed to have gotten their act together. They sounded complete and quite full, and the new songs from the highly anticipated new album, “The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi,” blew my mind. It still boggles me how no one seems to really know this band in the mainstream—they’re accessible while expelling qualities defining them as anything but ordinary.

This was the second or third time I’d be seeing Poison The Well, and once again they blew my mind. I love how the Well always puts out a wall of sound that seems to fill every inch of the room—and after their fantastic album “Versions” was released this year, I could only wait with eager anticipation to see how they’d put across the noisy guitars and noise live. Needless to say, it noisy as hell, and the anthemic singer tried to pull the crowd into it—but I have a feeling most of the kids in the crowd wanted to see Saosin and hadn’t heard of the Well. Sucks to be them, I guess.

After the Well left the stage, I found myself almost apathetic—I felt like the show was pretty much over. My energy was down, and after the last disappointing Saosin performance, I had little hope they would change my mind tonight. But, when the band took the stage dressed in Mexican clothing (sombreros, panchos) and started playing “It’s Far Better To Learn,” I found my self launching toward the stage. Of course, a pit opened up and some of the more stupid kids started doing karate kicks and what-not, but like usual I tried not to be distracted—and Cove couldn’t fool me. If I was to be nice, I’d say he was having a rough night—if I was to be honest, I’d say he was absolutely terrible. He had trouble hitting almost every note until the final song, “Some Sense Of Security” (which was actually quite spectacular) and at moments it seemed he didn’t even want to try. I appreciated the good humor found in the band when they had a crew member come out, shirtless and with his fake beard placed on his crotch, but it seemed almost cheesy and like the band wanted to detract from the poor vocal performance of Cove. This whole thing is a rather weird issue, and I hate to be…well, a hater, but I just can’t get into his live performance. On record, the band’s album sounds fantastic, however, and as expected I was enthusiastic about their guitarists and drummer, all of whom really know what they’re doing. It just seems Cove can’t really hang in the live act, and if we’re going to be honest we all know this has been an issue from the day A. Green left the quintet.

In any case, this was a fantastic tour overall, and even Saosin’s performance was enjoyable, if anything for the guitars and rhythm section alone. If you have the opportunity, I strongly suggest you go catch any one of these bands, and don’t forget to pick up The Receiving End Of Sirens’ new album, “The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi,” as soon as you can.

review by Andrew Martin