Motion City Soundtrack, The Trillions, Kid is Qual
Thursday, May 17 at The National
This show resulted in an unusual circumstance--independently, and unknown to each other, both Shannon Cleary and I were working to get press passes so we could write a review. By the time we each learned that the other was going with the intention of reviewing the show, there was only about a day left, and we'd both obtained press passes. So Shannon and I decided that, since we were both planning on reviewing the show anyway, we'd write the review together! What follows is the result of that collaboration, a review from two different points of view, arranged as somewhat of a dialogue. I hope that our multiple perspectives will provide unique, or at least unusual, insight into the show--that two heads will, as the cliche goes, be better than one. Read on and find out for yourself. --Andrew Necci
ANDREW: I seem unable at this late stage in my life to shake the idea of "rock time"--which states that you should expect the show to start at least an hour later than the stated starting time. The National does not observe rock time, and as a result, I can count on one finger the amount of times I've been inside the building by the time the first band started. You'd think I'd have learned by now, but considering that my usual arrival time of half an hour after the time on the flyer makes me 45 minutes early at every other venue in town, I guess I've got a pretty powerful incentive to keep thinking about it the way I do right now. All of which is a long-winded preamble to the embarrassing truth: I missed all of Kid Is Qual's set except for the last couple of songs. When I walked into the venue, they had just started the first of two songs that they played with a rapper doing guest vocals for them. I don't want to go all Pitchfork-at-their-snarkiest and call working with a rapper "ill-advised" or anything, but I will say that it seems like a lot of people have a negative impression of rap vocals over rock music. In Kid Is Qual's case, though, it actually turned out pretty well. I found myself thinking at one point about how natural the fit of rapped vocals was over the concentrated low-end sound of a dual-bass power trio like Kid Is Qual. The rapper (whose name I didn't catch) was talented, too, so the two songs I caught both sounded quite good to me. I still haven't seen Kid Is Qual do their regular material, sadly enough, but I'll definitely be on the lookout for them from now on.
So Shannon, what was your impression of Kid Is Qual's set? You were shooting video while they were playing, right? And hey, by the way, what was the rapper's name? Did you like the songs he did with them?
SHANNON: It’s a funny story. I initially met Jon Sullivan, Kid Is Qual's singer/"lead bassist", through mutual friends. After hearing their EP, Damn Son, I was curious about meeting the individual behind this material. Anyone who has met Sullivan can tell you that there really is no one quite like him, and this intrinsic quality of his personality is what makes the music in Kid is Qual unique. Upon hearing about this show, Sullivan assured me that I would be able to get in and review the show. I am by no means a videographer, but the opportunity arose and it seemed definitely worthwhile to take on this endeavor. I will admit this; I have a newfound respect for anyone who takes the time and effort to archive live shows. It’s an exhausting gig. It is something I would certainly do again, though.
This opportunity allowed me to have access directly in front of the stage for the duration of Kid Is Qual's set. At first, I was concerned that the quality of sound would be an issue, due to the close proximity to the stage. It wasn’t, though, and I was excited to see the band in action once more. One apt description that a friend of mine came up with for their sound is a hybrid of Trans Am and R Kelly. I think this fits. The lyrics are full of references to an unapologetic hard-partying lifestyle, while integrating tons of effects into the instrumentation and vocals. Their set focused on their new EP, Ladies Choice, as well as their first EP. Hearing tunes like “Knights of Ole” and “A.O.T.Y” was just truly remarkable, and it goes to show even further how innovative their technique and approach is.
Trew is the name of the hip-hop artist that joined the group on stage for their final three songs. The collaboration is fitting considering Trew was featured on their 2011 track “You’re A Crumb, I’m Ole.” I think that Kid is Qual’s sound really lends itself well to the hip-hop genre, and shows how they continue to excel by embracing the multi-faceted nature of their style. The songs showcased Trew as an artist who is definitely worth paying attention to, and showed how Kid is Qual could easily be one of the coolest backing bands ever. If I had one complaint, it was simply that the group didn’t have time to play “Qual is Qual.” That song is just ridiculous, and even though they already have a theme song, "Qual Is Qual" is the closest thing to a second theme song that they could have.
Photo by Sarah Walor
The Trillions were easily the band of the night for me. This was my first time seeing them perform since they put out their debut full-length via Worthless Junk Records. As someone who spends a lot of my free time showcasing what goes on in Richmond, I always wonder about local bands taking that eventual leap that any band dreams of happening. There are a lot of bands that I adore, but would have trouble imagining playing on a stage the size of The National. This has never been the case for The Trillions. Ever since the first time I caught them live, their sound and stage presence has always felt like it belonged in giant spaces. I was completely floored by their performance and I think they definitely benefited the most from the exposure of being featured on a bill like this. I might be wrong, but I was kind of surprised that “You Gotta Be Kidding Me” wasn’t included in the set. It didn’t do anything to harm the quality of their performance, but I was under the impression that this was a track they were pushing as a lead single off the record.
Considering that The Trillions were the first band whose full set you saw, what was your impression of their performance? I know you had just written about their new record fairly extensively, and showed a lot of admiration for what they were able to accomplish. Was this the first time you caught them live? I almost wonder what that would be like--to see a band like The Trillions play The National and have that be the first time. I want to say I think Gallery 5, The Camel or maybe even The Triple were the first spaces that I caught sets by them.
ANDREW: You know, I didn’t even notice that they didn’t play “You Gotta Be Kidding Me” until you mentioned it. Not that it’s a bad or unmemorable song by any means, it’s just that they’ve got a lot of great songs, and they filled the set with tunes I considered to be highlights. It didn’t even occur to me to notice which songs off the album didn’t get played. For the record, this was indeed my first time seeing the Trillions live, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. They’ve got a loud and clear sound, as well as an assured but not overconfident stage presence, and I felt like they filled up the greater sonic and physical space of the National quite admirably. It’d be cool to see them at a more intimate venue, especially since I was hanging out with some friends at this show who’d decided to stand a little farther back than I’d normally place myself. I hope next time I see The Trillions, I can get right up front and get the full impact of their sound. But I’m not complaining--they totally killed it.
Their decision to open with “I.C.C.B.” made me happy, as that’s my favorite of the songs on Tritones, and I was a little worried that things would go downhill afterwards--that their live set would suffer from First Song Syndrome or something like that. It was not to be, though--they kicked ass throughout, and played all of the songs I wanted to hear. Even “Parallelograms,” with its weird video-game guitar effects that kind of threw me on the album, worked very well in the live environment. I thought it was a really good choice for a set ender. I found the combination of Chris Smith and Charlie Glenn’s guitar sounds to be a particular highlight, by the way--they’ve got noticeably different styles, with Charlie going for a tighter, cleaner tone while Chris revs up his amp and gets a bit noisier. I think they combined really well onstage, which gave their live set an element that doesn’t really show up on record. Seeing the Trillions live made it obvious to me that you just can’t get the full effect from playing their records. Any music fans in RVA who still haven’t made it out to one of these guys’ live shows should rectify that situation, and quickly.
Having said all of that, dude, the band of the night for me was always gonna be Motion City Soundtrack. In more recent years I’ve kind of lost track of them, but between 5 and 10 years ago they were right up there with bands like Taking Back Sunday and Fall Out Boy as some of the most played records in my library. It’s true, I was a huge fan of the third wave (fourth wave?) of emo, the one that came along after Dashboard Confessional (who, to avoid confusion, I never much liked) in the early 2000s and spawned hundreds of Warped Tour bands and Hot Topic purchases. Something about the emotional place I was in at the time, and the true nature of my less-than-cool music tastes, which I was starting to get mature enough to stop denying, led me to dive headfirst into that whole wave of bands. Motion City Soundtrack were one of the many I discovered during that era. Their 2003 debut, I Am The Movie, connected with me in a big way, and that was even more true for their 2005 followup, Commit This To Memory. I bought Even If It Kills Me when it came out in 2007, and at least downloaded My Dinosaur Life when it hit the internet in 2010, but my musical and emotional landscape had changed somewhat by then, and neither of those albums ever made as big an impact on me as their first two did.
To be honest, I was a little worried that Motion City Soundtrack’s set would be a bit of a letdown to me; I didn’t want to be the hipster in the back of the room going “I liked the early stuff better,” but I knew I’d be bummed if they stuck to more recent material and didn’t play my favorite tunes from their earlier albums. I needn’t have worried--they didn’t exactly load their set down with 8-year-old songs, but songs I knew well made up a healthy proportion of the total. One of the first songs they played was “Everything Is Alright,” a song singer Justin Pierre wrote about his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I know every word to this song, and as I sang along loudly, I found myself getting pretty emotional. It was really only at that point that it hit me how much, in retrospect, those songs had meant to me--and still do mean to me. Maybe it’s somewhat cliche for an emo band to write lyrics about struggles with depression and other mental and emotional issues, but between Pierre’s excellent lyrics and the incredibly catchy musical backing provided by the rest of the band, Motion City Soundtrack’s best songs have always connected strongly for me with my own emotional struggles. In fact, I’m almost glad they played a bunch of songs I didn’t know all that well--if the whole set had been as personally intense as their performances of “Everything Is Alright,” or I Am The Movie closer “A-OK," which they played about halfway through the set, I might have found the whole thing a bit too overwhelming.
But damn, don’t get me wrong--throughout the set, regardless of whether I was hearing a song I didn’t know the name of or one whose lyrics I had entirely memorized, I was captivated by the energetic, note-perfect performances of the entire band. Keyboardist Jesse Johnson deserves particular commendation, particularly sense I’ve often been skeptical about the entire idea of a melodic emo band having a keyboardist at all. When Weezer or Reggie And The Full Effect would bust out the Moog on their records, I always curled my lip in disgust. And yet, Motion City Soundtrack have consistently managed to make it work for me. Johnson’s stage presence only made his presence behind the keys more essential--he rocked out harder than anyone else in the band, even at times when he didn’t have that much to do. On the bridge to a newer song, his job was to pick up a cowbell and hit it with a drumstick in time with drummer Tony Thaxton’s snare hits. Man, he whaled the hell out of that cowbell the whole time, getting so into it that I halfway expected him to fall off the drum riser. But he never did, keeping his balance throughout the entire set and livening up the proceedings considerably.
By the time Pierre announced that Motion City Soundtrack had two songs left, I had built myself up into a frenzy of anticipation. There were two more songs I wanted to hear, and I can tell you right now that if they hadn’t played both of them, it would significantly impacted my enjoyment of the show. Thankfully, they didn’t let me down--the last two songs were, in order, Commit This To Memory’s standout track, and my favorite Motion City Soundtrack song, “L.G. Fuad,” and I Am The Movie’s first single, “The Future Freaks Me Out.” “L.G. Fuad,” aka “Let’s Get Fucked Up And Die,” is my favorite of many great lyrics Justin Pierre has written for MCS. Part of its second verse was actually my “About Me” section on Myspace for at least a year (and if a more emo statement has ever been made on this website, I’ll be very surprised). So yeah, that song was an emotional overload, at least for me--in the best way possible, though. But then the band stepped back from the ledge and brightened the whole place up with the blast of pure silly fun that is “The Future Freaks Me Out.” This song derives a lot of its power from an incredibly catchy chorus that goes, “I’m on fire, and I think I’m ready to bust a move!” Plentiful singalongs occurred, as they had at several other points during the evening--I was far from the only diehard Motion City Soundtrack fan in the house that night--and as they left the stage, I couldn’t imagine that an encore could possibly match the emotional high of the way the main set ended. But one ironclad rule of rock music in the year 2012 is that anytime a show occurs at a venue with a capacity of over 300, there WILL be an encore. So I prepared myself for an anticlimax.
I’m not going to say that the encore managed to top the last couple of songs in the main set, but I have to admit that I’d sold Motion City Soundtrack short. They were back onstage within a couple of minutes of leaving, which is always nice, and they proceeded to play the one-two punch of “Make Out Kids” and “Time Turned Fragile,” from Commit This To Memory. Neither of these songs were on my list of tracks they absolutely HAD to play in order to satisfy me, but both of them are good, and the latter is a personal favorite, so I ended up very satisfied with the encore, and glad that this particular one happened, even if I am kind of disgruntled with the concept of encores in general.
OK, so clearly I love Motion City Soundtrack as much as I ever have. And yeah, I probably will buy their new album, Go, when it comes out next month. But what about you, Shannon? I know it was the local openers that got you in the door--were you familiar with Motion City Soundtrack before this show? And what did you think of their performance? By the way, did you know their bassist and drummer both used to live and play music here in Richmond?
SHANNON: The first time I encountered Motion City Soundtrack was in Baltimore. They were the openers for a show at The Ottobar with headliners The Weakerthans and Onelinedrawing. I had little to no expectations for their set and I was completely blown away. The intimacy of the venue really helped to solidify their stage prowess and the personality of the band. One thing that stuck out to me was this--they seemed grounded, as opposed to several pop-punk acts of the time, which could come across as more scripted and less genuine. I remember driving back with friends and humming “My Favorite Accident” in my head the entire ride home.
At that point, I Am The Movie became an easy favorite for me. Commit This To Memory fell through the cracks for me, though, and I do regret that. It seemed like a compelling follow-up that didn’t embellish the pre-existing traits of the band that appealed to me in the first place. They were continuing forward with nuanced pop music that seemed to register deeply for people within that age group. I enjoy the level of thought you displayed about the way they incorporate particular subject matter into their songs. In all honesty, a song about OCD seems like something any of us could find quick identification with, as do the many pop culture references they toss around. The one that comes to mind immediately was a quick nod to Veronica Mars, which made me grin to think that the show can find new ways to add to it’s growing legacy.
Considering my earlier responsibilities during KIQ’s set, I had the luxury of watching part of MCS’ set from the stage. It wasn’t ideal, since the band was operating with inner-ear monitors, thus making the sound a bit hollow from stage left. I did enjoy getting to see that perspective, and how the band was seeing the crowd respond to their music. “Everything is Alright” was a definite highlight, and it seemed to resonate deeply with the longtime fans as well as the younger fans.
As you mentioned, I had actually met the bassist of MCS several years ago as a result of having mutual friends that knew his then-girlfriend (now wife). I remember being told he was in this band and thinking that was pretty cool. I also continue to hear stories about his old band, Submerge, that make me really want to seek out recordings from that era. The one aspect of the band I was able to admire from the stage side was drummer Tony Thaxton. His precision on the kit was beyond impressive. One could argue that for a band like MCS, it’s not too difficult to find means of incorporating dynamic drum parts, but I disagree. If anything, it would probably be easier to just fall into a basic niche and work within that method album after album. Thaxton obviously has the chops to create really intricate parts that make the songs feel fuller, while never adding too much or getting to the point of showboating.
After enjoying the stageside perspective, I made my way into the crowd in order to find the best possible spot for the remainder of their set. I was happy to hear a lot of older songs make their way into the set. Like you, I would probably be in the same category of the curmudgeon who declares that the older stuff was better. Yet, the newer songs that I was less familiar with didn’t feel out of place with their back catalog. It felt like a way to engage and satisfy both sets of fans.
You are absolutely correct that KIQ and The Trillions helped to solidify my commitment for attending the show that night. If there was one reason that I was excited for MCS’ set, it was this: I think “The Future Freaks Me Out” is a near-perfect pop song. The chorus is ridiculous, and it has an incredible melody throughout. The first time I had a chance to sit down and listen to it, I played it nonstop for hours. I think I even watched the music video dozens of times. I still go back to that song, with constant reminders why I fell in love with it. It was the perfect set closer and I was excited to see the audience as enthusiastic about it as I was.
I can’t really speak about what this show meant to me as a fan of MCS in the future. I would like to investigate Commit This To Memory, just to play catch-up. The records that followed are ones that I might check out briefly, but I’m not sure if they will stick (didn’t one of them get produced by Mark Hoppus?) [Correct, that was their fourth album, My Dinosaur Life--Andrew]. I do know this, though--I was able to reflect on the first time I saw them live almost ten years ago and remember what struck me about MCS in the first place. They are a group that seems to evoke immediate connections with their fanbase, and they sing about vulnerabilities that aren’t limited to heartache. Pop songs about neuroses are much cooler anyway.