last night, my friend eddie and i hit up merriweather for the honda civic tour to see thrice, the get up kids and dashboard confessional. playing our usual game of Count the Asians, i spotted none other than the star of www.amytai.com: mike matozzi. i was also surprised to see justin had made the trip down (after all, they are the bert and ernie of the pop punk scene) and amy tai in all her belligerent glory.

our meeting was cut short due to security not allowing us to talk across the barriers (i was in the lawn area while mike and co. had seats). mike, always the life of the party, said nothing the whole time as he was still stunned to see me (recall that episode of simpsons where apu found out his wife just gave birth to 8 babies - that was mike).

As for the actual concert, the only right way to do this would to break it up by band. I came in just to hear the get up kids introduce themselves to an unsurprisingly young audience. nonetheless they sounded great as usual and played some of my favorite tracks from stwha and the guilt show.

simply put, thrice was amazing. they were the main reason i went as i never saw them live before. needless to say, i was not dissappointed. tippei, the japanese guitarist, was unbelievably on target with his crisp chords and eerie keyboards. my only complaints were their toned down set to accomdate the audience (i.e. an acoustic version of stare at the sun instead of the much better/harder one on the album). also, the crowd was dead, simply standing around. i guess they didn't want to ruin their brand new pleated skirts or get their collars unpopped.

finally, we have chris dashboard. don't get me wrong, i like a lot of his songs. it's just that i can't stand his new album, which he played most of his songs from. i left about three quarters of the way through.

pros: as usual, dashboard sounded good live. i also liked how he made fun of a kid wearing sunglasses at night and how he mentioned how 4 years ago when he first started, he played in a small, rundown church in college park (which was the first time i saw him). anybody notice how he during "remember to breathe" he threw in the phrase "i miss the atlantic but i am paid to mkae girls panice while i sing" (from brand new's "i will play my game beneath the spin light")

cons: besides the crappy set list, i can't stand how he stops so often to let the audience sing in his place. i didn't cough up twenty big boys to hear some nasally, out-of-tune 12 year old do your job. the man needs to get off his slacker ass and realize this is a concert, not some damn campfire sing-along. also, do you really need to go on about how great it is for your fans to write you emails and kiss your ass by telling you how much your music means to them? just sing, pussy!

all in all, decent show. i'd give it a B. also, merriweather is a great, chill place to just relax on the lawn and stare at the sky as you try to ignore the ugly, fat girl wearing hootchie clothes as she cries on about how dashboard is so sensitive.