Meg & Dia – Live (Jan. 23rd, 2009)

A tip for people going to future shows at the Starlite Room: you need a membership to enter.

It’s not hard to figure out, you fill out a form, hand over five bucks and get a membership for you and a guest. If you don’t have one, you can go into the main doors and get one in less than three minutes. Sadly, last Friday no one seemed aware of that when they tried to get into the venue for Secondhand Serenade, Meg & Dia, and Everlea which meant that when they got to the front of the line they had to stop and fill out the form there and make everyone behind them wait. So what should have taken us ten or fifteen minutes to get in took almost an hour; and an hour of waiting outside in minus twenty-five degree weather becomes painful after a while. It also meant we missed twenty-five minutes of Kingston, ON’s Everlea and I couldn’t concentrate on their last fifteen minutes because my feet were in pain from the cold. Winter sucks.

But alas, that did not matter. What did matter was Meg & Dia who were up next and ready to rock. With my feet no longer frozen solid we were able to fully appreciate the indie-pop outfit as they tested out new material from their upcoming album, Here Here and Here. The songs were a bit heavier and the band got into them right away. Dia Frampton’s vocals, despite being slightly muffled in the mix, were a lot stronger than they were a year and a half ago and she seemed to have much more energy in her performance as well. After one new song, Meg Frampton pulled out the acoustic guitar for Halloween – a song from the upcoming Take Action! compilation. The song about a friend’s death was definitely the highlight of their set and really showcased Dia’s vocal reach.

After another new track they played Roses and started to introduce Cardigan Weather before finding out they only had time for one more. Skipping Cardigan Weather, they played their hit single Monster before leaving the stage. Having only played a total of five songs, their set seemed short – particularly thinking about how long Everlea had played; but sometimes that’s all the time you can get for an opening band.

After a set change, the headlining Secondhand Serenade came on. After two songs, we realized we couldn’t stand the over exaggerated, generic, emo whining and opted to have a nice dinner at the Blue Plate Dinner instead which was definitely the better choice.