Taking Back Sunday, Underoath, Armor For Sleep – Live (March 20th, 2007)

  • Bobby Gorman posted
  • Reviews

Taking Back Sunday, Underoath, Armor For Sleep

Live (March 20th, 2007) - Northlands Agricom - Edmonton, Alberta

Frankly, I needed this.

It had been way too long since my last concert and I was eagerly counting down the days before this tour hit town. Of course, before the band that I really wanted to see hit the stage I would have to sit through one band I found boring and another that I had seen numerous times in the past. Either way, I was still excited and I was quite content with the results of the show.

First up was Armor For Sleep, a band that I, for the most part, find dull and boring. They were definitely not a band I was looking forward to seeing nor a band that I would ever have gone out of my way to see, but I was at the venue, I had paid for the ticket, I was going to see all the bands on the bill; and honestly, they surprised me a bit. The band played the few songs by them that I like, like Awkward Last Words and Car Underwater for example, and got some moderate crowd response (I was incredible surprised to see the ninjas come out during the band’s first track, but hey, what are you going to do?) However, they were seriously lacking in intensity and movement. They were stagnant and not very energetic, and I often found my mind wandering off onto other things – something which is NEVER a good sign at a concert. So not horrible, but they couldn’t hold my interest for more than a few seconds for the most part and unless they’re on opening act, I’ll probably never go to see them live again.

After a thirty minute break the lights dimmed and the crowd headed towards the stage once again for one of the best introductions I have seen for a while. Roaring through the speakers came a sound of an army approaching before you heard Gerard Butler scream “THIS IS SPARTA!“. Lights went black. Strobe lights blared and out on the stage came Underoath, the six piece Christian rock band. They picked up from that momentum and carried it through the entire set as they jumped, spat, and generally went crazy. Spencer Chamberlain’s voice, while not always being able to make out what he was saying between songs, was able to bring his screams to life; and like always Chris went wild on the keyboards and Tim, as one person I heard put it, looked like a battle dwarf. They were energetic and put on a spectacular show, the only clitches were in the sound department. A lot of the time it wasn’t that clean and you could never hear Tim’s backup vocals – but that’s what happens when you get a bigger venue.

Finally, Taking Back Sunday hit the stage.

Now, for this band, it was the little kid in me that came out. Tell All Your Friends was a CD that I fell in love with way back in 2002 and an album I still love. It had taken almost five years to the day for me to see them live (not counting the three songs they played at Warped Tour 2 years ago), but it was worth the wait.

That’s not saying there weren’t a few hiccups either, but luckily, those were mainly at the start as Adam’s voice started out slightly weak. He wasn’t putting everything into as he could, but as the show progresses his vocals improved until there were no more complaints possible.

The band ripped through a ton of their catalogue, mainly focusing on Louder Now, with only a few selections (A Decade Under The Influence and Number Five With A Bullet) from Where You Want To Be and Tell All Your Friends (Ghost Man On Third, Blue Channel). Adam wooed the crowd with his microphone tossing skills and while some songs were slightly sped up, they sounded pretty much spot on. The most surprising element of the show was when, out of nowhere, the band just jumped into Cute Without The “E” (Cut From The Team). It was right the middle of the set after getting the crowd to sign some chords back at them, and no one was expecting it there but the crowd went crazy.

For an encore, Adam came out by himself with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. He started off with a song I could recognize but couldn’t name before merging it into Divine Intervention which went intoSexyBack (I think), back into Divine Intervention before breaking into The Killers‘ Bones and back to Divin Intervention for a final run. After that, the full band came on to end the show withMakeDamnSure before they left the stage for the night.

Despite some sound problems here and there, Taking Back Sunday put on a good show. They played most of the songs I wanted to hear and I’ll definitely be there the next time they come through town. Hopefully it won’t take five years and two CDs before that happens.