Kem - Intimacy Album III (2010).zip
Caterina Haggins
It's a crazy thought to travel to the other side of the planet just to see four concerts by the same band across four nights. But it's equally crazy to decide to play your entire recorded discography as a band from start to finish after eight studio albums underneath your belt, which is what Alkaline Trio are doing across select North American cities. They've dubbed the tour Past Live as a celebration of their records that are starting to turn so old that they rarely appear as a part of their regular setlists aside from a key couple of songs off each album to the disappointment of the band's older fans like yours truly.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. I've been listening to Alkaline Trio for the better part of the past 15 years, and they've consistently managed to stay among my absolute favorite bands during that period. I remember the release of almost every single album and what I was doing when I listened to them for the first time. I remember crying my eyes out after a particularly harsh breakup to the tunes of "Stupid Kid" on "From Here To Infirmary" in early 2005. I remember the first time I saw the band live on the "Crimson" tour later that year and feeling intensely disappointed at their static stand-still approach that has since become their signature way of appearing on stage. I remember cursing the band to the seventh hell after they absolutely mauled my favorite tracks off "Goddamnit" at Groezrock some years ago, leaving the tent after only a couple of songs in detest over how they could sound so terrible.
Yet through all those disappointments my affirmation for the band has never diminished. Their studio albums are simply way too good to be ignored, so against all common sense I opted to fly to Los Angeles International Airport early Thursday morning from Copenhagen, Denmark via Dsseldorf all by myself, arriving just on time for the 5pm commuter traffic jam in one of the largest cities in the world. Note to self: when Google Maps indicates travel time of 42 minutes for 61km down to Orange County, make sure to add a couple of hours of bumper-to-bumper queuing on top. So much for that fancy Dodge Charger I had rented out for the ride.
Alkaline Trio first toyed with the Past Live concept during fall 2014, where they tried out the concept in Brooklyn (New York), Chicago, and Los Angeles. The idea was to play all eight studio albums (b-sides and rarities collections excluded) in exactly the same order as they are tracked on the records, splitting them up into couples of two full albums per night across Thursday to Sunday. The three sold-out shows were so well received by their fan base that extra ones were planned for this spring, this time with dates in Denver, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, Orlando, San Francisco, and Santa Ana (Orange County), which all promptly sold out with the exception of the Orange County show that only sold out at the doors with the exception of the Saturday night show.
That's an awful lot of critically acclaimed albums with only a couple of weaker ones in the mix, at least if you ask your everyday Alkaline Trio fan. Pretty much all records with the exception of "Agony & Irony" and "This Addiction" are widely considered seminal albums within punk rock (and in the case of "Crimson", within alternative rock), and even the so-called weaker ones aren't bad by any means. Still, given the two albums per night schedule, a true front-to-back of entire discography would have felt front-loaded towards the first two nights in terms of song quality. While a set featuring "Goddamnit" and "Maybe I'll Catch Fire" in a row would've probably put each of those shows into the history books as some of the best the genre has seen to date, the only sensible choice was to spiral down towards the center of their discography, playing a new album and an old album coupled together during each night.
In practice, that meant "My Shame Is True" opening the festivities with "Goddamnit" following immediately after on Day 1, with "Crimson" and "Good Mourning" closing down Day 4 in celebratory fashion. This ensured that each night featured at least one album that was widely considered album-of-the-year material in the year that it was released, offering much-needed balance to the sets.
Given that each city on the tour was clearly designed to be a special occasion, each night in every city featured a different opening band handpicked by Alkaline Trio. These represented a wide array of different styles of punk, indie, singer-songwriter and garage rock, and in Santa Ana, the honors fell on Dave House (The Loved Ones), Swimmers (feat. Green Day vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong's son on drums), Mrs. Magician, and The All Brights (a.k.a. Van Wilder band). More about each of them later on. None of them were coincidences, for each of them at least one Alkaline Trio member could be seen in the shadows, whether through obvious influence (Dave Hause) or through actual physical presence on the side of the stage (Dan Andriano watching The All Brights).
The Observatory is an old theater with capacity somewhere between 500 and 1000 people (based on my rough estimate) in suburban Santa Ana, Orange County, approximately 60 kilometers south from central Los Angeles. It used to go by the name Galaxy Theater, and hosts a wide array of concerts and other events on its premises. It features two storeys, where the second floor is a balcony area with table seating available for purchase against a $100 minimum spend (perfect if you're three or more) with great view across the hall to the stage. The floor area is designed in a semi-circular shape with three levels: the mosh-pit friendly floor are right in front of the stage, and slightly elevated semi-circles behind it allowing everyone a good view given the gradually inclining nature of the venue.
As for beverages, 24oz tallboys (0.7 L) of Pabst Blue Ribbon or Modelo Especial (Mexican) were available alongside a few craft beers and the standard American offering in smaller 0.4 L cups, not to mention the standard mix-drinks of the Gin&Tonic and Rum&Coke variety. Thanks to the strength of Dollar these days, none of this qualified as cheap at least not on European standards, but what's a few extra dollars against the overall spend for the whole trip anyway.
The sound was pretty much perfect throughout all four nights everywhere I stood in the venue with the exception of directly to the side of the stage, but that's only because you weren't in front of the speakers anymore and were reliant on monitors only. Then again, it's easy to do sound when it's the same band all four nights. Kudos to the sound guy nonetheless for getting so much detail out of especially the older material from 15-17 years ago.
It goes without saying that playing your entire discography is going to be a for-the-fans type of an event where everyone attending is rightly considered a die-hard fan of the band despite the relatively low ticket price of $25 per night. Still, the atmosphere was something we can only dream of in Europe, particularly in Copenhagen.
With a packed audience each night all bonded together by a common love of Alkaline Trio songs, we sung our lungs out for more or less all of the 97 songs straight. After all, these are songs that we've fallen in love to, broken up to, gotten drunk to, listened to while hungover, grown up with, grown old to, felt sentimental to. The songs are so relatable that it's a certainty everyone here has relied on an Alkaline Trio song at one point in their life, whether good or bad. Just think about that for a second. It's the kind of unique feeling of togetherness that makes you feel like you know everyone in the crowd despite never having met them in the first place. It's a sense of completeness that's indescribable, a feeling of mutual appreciation between the band and the audience that felt immeasurably thick throughout all four nights, manifesting in thunderous explosions of sing along meets mosh pit moments during the early albums, and calm, almost tranquil sing alongs during the mid-2000s albums, and everything in between.
Perhaps appreciative of this situation, the band realize what a monumental moment this is for us in the crowd. Not only do we get to hear all of our favorite songs -- yes, even those odd ones out that nobody else than us liked on the records -- but we also get to hear them in the same fucking order as we learned to know them on the albums. You know, back in the day when people listened to full albums instead of just songs? So they opt for a showcase feel with minimal interaction in between the songs, just playing the shows in as unfiltered fashion as humanly possible. And they play them well. Exactly as they sound on album, which is a truly impressive feat considering they had to learn and remember instrumentation and lyrics to 97 songs in total. This approach allowed each of us to dwell on the memories behind each song we had, instead of the band replacing those with their own ones of what these songs were originally all about and why they were written. After all, that's not nearly as important to the fan as what the song means to the fan himself today. It's our interpretation and how we applied the songs to our lives that matters here.
It's opening night. Dave Hause will spend a short thirty minutes charming us and getting us warmed up, before we hear "My Shame Is True" in its entirety. It's a new album that sounds great, but the crowd is less familiar with it than the fiery punk rock explosion that is "Goddamnit", arguably one of the most seminal albums recorded in the genre to date.
The support duties for the opening night have been granted to Dave Hause, whose name you might recognize from his time as the frontman of The Loved Ones. His down-to-earth appearance is always charming, but tonight he seems especially genuine and honest in his communication with the crowd. As Hause approach stage solo for the first time, someone in the audience asks his/her friend a little too loudly "Who's that?", to which the friend replies "It's the guitar tech", which Dave Hause of course finds hilarious and shares with the rest of us. Throughout the set, we're treated to small anecdotes about his relationship with Alkaline Trio and about the time that he actually lived at Matt Skiba's place right after they recorded "My Shame Is True" and he was in the writing and recording process of "Devour" at the same time. We hear about how much he owes rent to Skiba and how he wouldn't even be here playing today if it wasn't for Alkaline Trio. He nominates a guy wearing a "Who the fuck is Matt Skiba?" t-shirt to fetch him a whiskey from the bar, while questioning if he actually knows what is happening here tonight. Humour is one of his weapons for sure, but then again, so are the songs. "Autism Vaccine Blues" is fantastic with its small "woo-ooh-oh-oh" parts drawing a small sing along, "Time Will Tell" allows him to move away from the mic stand while the crowd takes care of the lyrics, while "Resolutions" sees him work in a little "Goddamnit" lyrical reference into the song, resulting in a wild response from the crowd. The quality of song craft combined with his exceptionally charismatic vocal delivery is exactly what is needed to get the crowd going for tonight. Singer-songwriter is rarely as good and interesting as Dave Hause tonight. [7]
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