Blood Brothers @ 9:30 Club, 11.14.06

Setlist
"Set Fire"
"Teen Heat"
"Nausea"
"Ambulance"
"Laser Life"
"Camouflage"
"Rat Rider"
"Skeletal"
"Dream Unicorn"
"Trash"
"Peacock"
"1,2,3,4 Guitars"
"Vital Beach"
"Love Rhymes"
"Cecilia"
"Giant Swan"

9:30 Club Tonight: Trail of Dead, Blood Brothers

Tuesday, November 14

7:00 Doors
7:30 Brothers and Sisters
8:15 Celebration
9:05 Blood Brothers
10:30 ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

Metro D highly recommends checking out Celebration's set. Katrina Ford & Co. are high energy and a lot of fun.

Blood Brothers, Trail of Dead @ Irving Plaza, 11/12

Sunday shows are the absolute worst and this was the second show in two nights for the Blood Brothers/Trail of Dead tour at Irving Plaza. Add to it the shitty weather outside and in such a rare instance, I'd be willing to give these guys a mulligan. Over the course of the last two years, Trail of Dead has ascended my list of favorite bands even as others began to write them off. I missed their show at Black Cat last year and this was my first chance to see them live. From the cryptic messages found throughout the blogosphere, the reviews of this tour have been very pro Blood Brothers/meh AYWKUBTTOD. Needless to say, given the above, my expectations going into last night were pretty damn low. Well, you know where I'm going with this, forget all that shit because they ripped out my insides and shred them to pieces. I'm completely exhausted this morning, my ears are still ringing, and I could care less. They were everything I wanted them to be and more.

I won't go into much detail because I want InMyTree to go into Tuesday's show with an open mind. If you know what you're getting into, Blood Brothers will absolutely live up to the hype they're getting on this current tour but their sound is just not for me. Given the choice of incessant screaming or Conrad Keely's admittedly shaky vocals, I'll take the latter every time. Consistent with the rest of the tour, the set list was very focused on earlier work, "Stand in Silence" was again, the only new song they played. I'm not sure if this is due to lack of practice with the new material or the fact that the album has yet to be released. That will be judged by the remainder of the tour. They played the 3 songs that I needed to hear including what I believe to be the best song of the past decade, "How Near, How Far" ("Another Morning Stoner" and "Will You Smile Again" were the other two). Their set was a relatively short 70 minutes but to be honest, I'm not sure I could have handled anything more. Jason Reece did about 3 songs but made up for it by doing an entire show's worth of stage antics. The band did a one song encore and invited about 30 people from the crowd up on stage and unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure what the last song was, maybe "Richter Scale Madness?" It was a bit hard to tell with everything going on and people bouncing into the band. Here is my attempt at the setlist, in no particular order, and I may have one or two incorrect songs in here. If anyone out there has the official setlist, please send it to me.

"Ode to Isis"
"How Near How Far"
"Caterwaul"
"Homage"
"Clair de Lune"
"Days of Being Wild"
"It Was There That I Saw You"
"Relative Ways"
"Another Morning Stoner"
"Will You Smile Again"
"Stand in Silence"
"Rest Will Follow"
"Richter Scale Madness" ??

Trail of Dead is going to be busy over the next two days, they're doing an album release show tonight at midnight at the Virgin Megastore in NYC, followed by another in-store at Sound Garden tomorrow in Baltimore and then the show at 9:30 Club tomorrow night. Who knows, that could lead to a sub par effort but you've been warned.

Related News:
The New York Times reviewed the Saturday show

B is for Blood

I sat down to bang out my lackluster resume for a grad school application and put on Bloc Party from the beginning to the end. It kicked of with The Bloc Party E.P. and rolled all the way Silent Alarm with some singles, bootlegs, and remixes in between. What happened next, was fantastic. Somewhere between Bloc Party and Bob Dylan (which continues to roll) my iPod stumbled upon Blood Feathers and The Blood Brothers. Two tracks from distribution CDs that landed in my hands through Insound orders. Bombarded by other new music, a devastating workload and application after application, these two tracks had slipped through my greedy paws. Until tonight. I am definitely psyched for The Blood Brothers' opening slot for ...Trail of Dead 9:30 Club show on Tuesday. It appears to be the perfect setup for the boys from Austin.

*** *** ***

Blood Feathers
Philadelphia winters are spitefully cold and longer than seems possible or even just. It's awfully hard to do anything at all. Yet right in the heart of those frozen doldrums Ben Dickey and Drew Mills (both lately band-bachelors and good-friends), got down to blowing on the embers of songs they had, individually and together, been incubating for some time. Aha. It caught: this prolific twosome favor each other so handsomely in tone, skill, presence and purpose that it was only natural to shake hands and make a band. And thus from ashes ~oh the formidable Phoenix!~ has risen Blood Feathers. Their fantastic fledgling album, curse and praise, was recorded during nine days of hibernation in a little nest of a studio tucked in the corner of an arctic warehouse in Fishtown. [MySpace]
[Blood Feathers]

Upcoming dates:
Nov 16 Club Europa, Brooklyn, New York
Nov 18 North Star Bar, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dec 15 Johnny Brendas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

MP3: Blood Feathers - "Sea Legs"

*** *** ***

The Blood Brothers
Lyrically, Young Machetes remains firmly rooted in the surreal consciousness, rage and oblique politics the Brothers have always embraced. It also reveals a new, once-bitten wisdom. "I thought the collective dissent of our generation would bring about positive change," says Jordan of the election year climate that inspired Crimes and its direct commentary. "When that didn't happen I felt like the bottom had fallen out." Still, Jordan and the band stay positive, motivated by the idea of the 'personal as political.' "It comes down to your dollars and cents - who and what you choose to support." It also means music is a microcosm for change. "Imagine where we could go with music," Morgan ponders, "if we always said 'yes' and not 'no.'" [The Blood Brothers]
[Official Site | MySpace]

Remaining dates for Trail of Dead, The Blood Brothers, Celebration, and Brothers and Sisters:
Nov 11 Irving Plaza New York , NY
Nov 12 Irving Plaza New York , NY
Nov 14 9:30 Club Washington, DC
Nov 15 Tremont Music Hall Charlotte, NC
Nov 16 The Masquerade Atlanta , GA
Nov 17 The Club at Firestone Orlando , FL
Nov 18 Jannus Landing St. Petersburg, FL
Nov 20 House of Blues New Orleans, LA
Nov 21 Warehouse Houston , TX
Nov 22 Emo's Austin, TX
Nov 24 Granada Theatre Dallas, TX
Nov 25 Jake's Backroom Lubbock, TX
Nov 27 Marquee Theatre Phoenix, AZ
Nov 28 House of Blues Las Vegas, NV
Nov 29 House of Blues San Diego, CA
Nov 30 Henry Fonda Theatre Los Angeles, CA
Dec 1 Henry Fonda Theatre Los Angeles, CA
Dec 2 Glasshouse Pomona, CA
Dec 3 Empire Sacramento, CA
Dec 5 Fillmore San Francisco, CA
Dec 6 Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
Dec 7 Showbox Seattle, WA
Dec 9 Sugar Night Club Victoria, BC
Dec 10 Croatian Cultural Center Vancouver, BC
Dec 11 MacEwan Ballroom Calgary, AB
Dec 12 The Venue Formerly Known as Red's Edmonton, AB
Dec 14 Avalon Theatre Salt Lake City, UT

MP3: The Blood Brothers - "Laser Life"