It may have seemed like a risk when he did it, but Fred Mascherino’s decision to leave Taking Back Sunday to pursue his own band The Color Fred is looking more and more like a sure thing. When The Color Fred first came through, it was playing the small Knitting Factory. On Friday, the band played the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza with Straylight Run. When it returns on Feb. 15 with Angels and Airwaves, it will be playing Roseland Ballroom.
“It’s crazy,” Mascherino told me Friday night, after his set at Irving Plaza. “It’s way too early to be playing Roseland with this project, even if we are just opening.”
But fans of the band’s debut “Bend to Break” (Equal Vision) or those who have seen its increasingly more powerful live shows know that The Color Fred is quickly coming into its own. And Mascherino said he’s once again enjoying the climb up.
“It’s like going back in time,” he said. “I’ve had so much fun on this tour. And it’s so rewarding to be playing my own music.”
SETLIST: Get Out / Complaintor / The Tragedy / Hate to See You Go / Minnesota / If I Surrender / Don’t Pretend
On a related note, Taking Back Sunday has gathered in New York this week and is apparently auditioning guitar players to replace Mascherino. The band is looking at five guitarists, including Andrew Jackson, lead singer/guitarist from the recently broken-up Connecticut rockers Hot Rod Circuit.