Spill Canvas, Meg & Dia, PlayRadioPlay! – Live (Oct. 20th, 2007)

First and foremost, I didn’t realize The Spill Canvas were this big. I walked up to the venue a good thirty minutes after doors were supposed to open (although, they were just opening the doors then due to some delay) and the lineup was down the block. Thirty minutes later when I finally got into the Starlite Room I was surprised to see it almost completely full – and there was still a line up of people behind me. I didn’t realize the South Dakota outfit had this big of a following and I was shocked by it. I couldn’t help but think that something is wrong when there’s more people here at a Spill Canvas show than there were at the Strung Out show two months ago. That has no reflection on the show itself, just a general observation I thought of when I first walked in to the venue as the show began.

First up was Aledo, Texas’ PlayRadioPlay! (Idiot Pilot weren’t performing on this stop of the tour for some reason).The band was a few songs into their set as I entered the venue, and truthfully, I was surprised with what I saw. Instead of just one man singing with a backing track blaring out of a Apple Powerbook G4 laptop, Daniel Hunter had a full band backing him. It makes sense since he has some label support now, however, I wanted to see him up there with only his laptop, guitar and microphone.

Either way, it didn’t really matter much, just a little aesthetic hiccup that I soon overlooked. As it was, PlayRadioPlay! weren’t all that bad. Although they had very little stage presence, partly due to the lack of space, they didn’t sound bad as they played through their pop tracks like I’m A Pirate, You’re A Princess and Decipher Reflections From Reality. Hunter’s vocals carried through rather well, but he failed to have the proper demeanor for a front man with very little banter and a somewhat static style of singing.

As they finished their set, a black curtain surrounded the stage blocking my view of the next band setting up. At this point, I didn’t know whether or not Idiot Pilot were still playing the show or whether Meg & Dia would be up next. When the curtains drew back I was excited to see the Utah sisters up on stage because quite frankly if they weren’t playing the show, there would have been no way that I’d be attending that show.

Suffice to say, I couldn’t wait to see Meg & Dia perform live again after being amazed by their show during the summer’s Warped Tour. Despite not being quite as captivating as they were four months ago,Meg & Dia still put on a phenomenal performance. They played their indie pop seamlessly and Dia’s vocals were great. They limited the banter between songs and instead squeezed in as many tracks as they could and put in quite a lot of energy too. This time they had their full band backing them and weren’t forced to play acoustically which gave the songs a bit more of a spark and I found myself wishing that I knew the lyrics to more of their songs, as it was I could only recognize a few of the tracks like Cardigan Weather, Setting Up Sunday, Roses and a cover of Paolo Nutini‘s New Shoes. They ended their set with the energetic Monster, and it was with that song that they really exploded on the stage with full force. Then, as quickly as it had been drawn, the black curtain was up again for the final set change of the night.

When Nick Thomas and his band hit the stage, the crowd erupted with cheers. They broke into Reckless Abandonment and put on a better show than I expected. Thomas’ vocals were strong and while it was sometimes awkwardly silent while they were switching guitars, The Spill Canvas were still able to keep the crowd entertained for most of the set. The few times they stopped to talk Thomas joked with the crowd in a light hearted fashion or commented on the beauty of people connecting with one another through music. The weird thing was how strictly they focused on the material from their new album, No Really, I’m Fine with cuts like The Truth, Connect The Dots and Hush Hush. All around me I could hear people commenting how they couldn’t wait for some older material, and when they did bring out the older songs the crowd happily ate it up and sung along – particularly on the band’s hit single and their encore All Hail The Heartbreaker. Their performance wasn’t nearly as bland as their recordings and while their show didn’t do anything to absolutely wow me, their hardcore fans couldn’t get enough of it which is essentially what you want to happen. I doubt I would go out of my way to see them again unless they have great openers like Meg & Dia again, but for someone who is a big Spill Canvas fan (and there seemed to be a lot of them), it would have been a rather memorable show as long as you like their newer material.