Wow! Awesome show! But being home before midnight on a concert night is a first for me.
The openers were pretty good, the venue was great... it was my first time at the Altar Bar and I really enjoyed it. It's about 1/3 the size of First Avenue, but it's pretty much the same type of club. Turn out was great, and I'm sure if it was a Friday they would've really packed the place. It used to be a church so there's stained glass and stuff, and it's just a really cool venue.
The setlist was similar to all the recent ones. Can't Even Tell and I Will Still Be Laughing were definite highlights, but my favorite song of the evening was Never Really Been since it's been a couple years since I've heard it, and it brought out the big fans in the crowd. Early in the set, someone yelled it out, and when they finally got to it, there were a bunch of "YEAH"'s! and alot of singing along.
The encore was Made To Be Broken and April Fool, and man did they tear it up!
All-around it was a fantastic show, the setlist was great, the playing was top-notch, and all the guys were in an awesome mood.
I finally got to meet Justin and I told him that I really, really like him and he's an awesome fit to the band, etc. etc. It was great to talk to him and he was really sweet.
My mom wanted to leave so I couldn't stick around to talk to Dave for very long at all, but I still got to say hi and give him a hug and thank him for the show. He asked me the usual question, "What are you doing here?" and for once I got to say, "I live here, Dave!"
There wasn't much stage banter, but at one point he asked, "Is everyone in this town Irish?" and the answer from the crowd was an emphatic "YES".
Before one of the songs he said, "This one goes out to T-Pain" and a couple people were like "Yeah!!" and then he was just like, "I don't know, I'm just making shit up," and it was really cute/funny.
Great show, great night, just wish I could've stayed longer. Pictures will be posted in a little bit here, and I'm gonna try to dig up the links to today's in-studio thingies if they're out there. (I missed the WYEP one 'cuz they didn't plug it at all till like the hour before it happened and I missed the memo).
Can't wait till next time! (I hope it's soon!)
EDIT: Okay, pics are up on my Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssajones37/ There's more bad ones than good, but I'm too tired and lazy to sort them right now, so I just threw all 45 of 'em up.
