Back home

Hey, you know what? This week I saw a band I've known and liked since I was 13/14 years old for the first time live on stage.

I pretty accurately remember me and my brother hanging in our house listening to music and my brother telling me to check out this one song. It was Back Home by "some obscure" band called Yellowcard. He got it from LimeWire (remember LimeWire?), I don't know how though. I was listening to Busted, Avril Lavigne, Blink-182, Fountains Of Wayne, ... so Yellowcard fitted in pretty damn good.
I immediately got hooked to Back Home, it being at the time one of the best songs I had ever heard. Long story short: I checked out Ocean Avenue, which is awesome, my brother ordered One For The Kids from the internet (which at that time was totally unusual) and I found The Underdog EP at the local record store. Whoo!

Now skip about 6/7 years to 2011. I'm a 20-year old linguistics student, generally stoked on life but you know... I still listen to punk rock, which is something Yellowcard played a huge role in (together with Blink and the Offfspring). I go to shows regularly but Yellowcard have never come to Europe. They were to come at Pukkelpop (which I didn't attend) but that plan got blown away (pun intended). So Tuesday the 13th of December, 2011, Yeloowcard performed its first show on Belgium ground. And I was there to see them. Which was cool, both for the sake of it and for their show.

The line-up was pretty crazy actually. The Wonder Years started the evening and I arrived at the venue about half-way through their set. I'm fairly unfamiliar with them, but they're a cool band. I'm really liking this song right now. Anyway, I was surprised to see, like, 3 guitar players cause that's a lot. But their music is packed with energy and punch. They play this kind of "easycore" punk rock that can either go wrong (like I saw with Transit last Friday) or right (I had the impression The Wonder Years were way further in this game). It's supposed to be catchy and primarily.. well, yeah punchy. The part of the set I saw was certainly alright. It wasn't mind-blowing or anything, but it was up my league. Good job, guys!

Next up was - wait, what? - Defeater! Wow, quite the odd combo. But I don't care, I like almost everything in music as long as it has a beat and is in tune (so everything excluding dubstep I guess). Defeater fucking hit the spot. 5th time in Bels, my second time of seeing them. Although they're not the kind of band to play huge stages and have a diustance between band and audience they slayed. They absolutely killed it. One of the best shows I've seen these past few months. They reminded me of a more emotional and less chaotic version of the Dillinger Escape Plan. I know that doesn't make much sense but I think you're used to me not making sense, right? Either way, performance was stellar, they are amazing artists and they know how to push the buttons.

Saves The Day was next. As evidence that I like everything, I thought this show was super fun! I've heard many complaining and I can see why I think, but I was into it, I think they played a decent set. Apparently many people can't stand the singer's voice (anymore), cause it's hella nasal and high-pitched, but I dug it. I like nasal, high-pitched vocals. I like catchy pop (punk) melodies. I liked the set. They played 4 songs I knew I think (off of Stay What You Are/Through Being Cool) but I like most of the newer songs as well (some songs were pretty lousy though). They finished the set with At Your Funeral (of course) and that was very cool.
Saw the bass player after the show and we talked about Belgian beers and how good they are. They are really good. He was a nice good. I thought he looked like Rise Against's singer, but he didn't think so.

Then, finally, I was about to see Yellowcard. Actually, same scenario as with Saves The Day, I don't know any of their newer songs (post-Ocean Avenue). But damn did they put on a solid show. Singer was ill, but that didn't bother in the least. They played lots of great songs, an acoustic one which wasn't really necessary for me. I was kinda upfront and I almost felt like being at a festival. Con: not a punk rock show. Pro: lotsa girls! I dances, sang along to the couple songs I knew and had a lot of fun because flippin' Yellowcard was playing. That was good enough!