Taking Back Sunday turned what could have been a run-of-the-mill benefit performance Wednesday night at Webster Hall into a special event, playing its “Louder Now” (Warner Bros.) album in its entirety from start to finish.
“Welcome to ‘Louder Now,’ ladies and gentlemen,” singer Adam Lazzara said, after the Rockville Centre-based band ripped through the album’s first six songs. “This is something very special for us.”
It’s a move that traditionally doesn’t work for most bands – especially in these days where filler tracks are a way of life. However, “Louder Now,” one of 2006’s best albums, is solid from top to bottom, and the crowd reaction proved it, singing along the entire time. By the time Taking Back Sunday hit the final songs “Error: Operator,” with raucous guitarwork from Fred Mascherino and Ed Reyes, and “I’ll Let You Live,” the crowd was in a frenzy, realizing that they were part of something special.
Lazzara added yet another surprise in “Divine Intervention,” opening the song with part of “Turnpike Gates” from the band Lifetime, the New Jersey emo-core pioneers he idolizes so much that he has their lyrics tattooed on his arm. (More..)
SETLIST: What's It Feel Like To Be A Ghost? / Liar (It Takes One To Know One) / MakeDamnSure / Up Against (Blackout) / My Blue Heaven / Twenty-Twenty Surgery / Spin / Divine Intervention / Miami / Error: Operator / I’ll Let You Live / ENCORES: Cute Without the ‘E’ / One-Eighty by Summer / A Decade Under the Influence
Photo by Derrick Santini / Warner Bros. Records
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Taking Back Sunday clearly wanted to make their appearance at the benefit for LIFEbeat, the music industry group dedicated to HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, a special one. The show, which also featured Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars, was part of MTV’s warm-up to tonight’s Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall.
And though Taking Back Sunday and 30 Seconds to Mars are the front-runners for the MTV2 award at tonight’s ceremony, both bands had nothing but nice things to say about each other. Leto called them “a band we couldn’t admire more” and “the nicest guys on the -#@& planet” and was a big enough fan to watch part of the set with MTV2 VJ Jim Shearer in the V.I.P. section, even though he had been under the weather the whole day.
Before the show, Lazzara told Backstage Pass that the second single from “Louder Now” in the U.S. would be “Liar” and that the band finished shooting the video earlier this month in Los Angeles, in between European festivals and a short Japanese tour. All the traveling led to way-too-many thousands of miles of air travel and a pretty serious case of jet lag after arriving in New York on Tuesday. (“My body hates me so much right now,” Lazzara said.)
Lazzara said he was still kind of reeling from yesterday’s VMA prep day. “It’s like all of pop culture in one room,” he said, adding that the band isn’t sure what to expect from walking the red carpet tonight before the show. “We’re walking around going, ‘What are we doing here?’”
On stage, Lazzara said he was glad to be performing, as the band waits to see if it wins its first MTV VMA. “That stuff is sort of important,” he said, looking into the crowd. “But this is very important.”
He then pointed out the families of drummer Mark O’Connell and bassist Matt Rubano cheering from the balcony, before telling the entire crowd, “It means more to us than we can ever tell you.”