Coheed and Cambria, Vaux, JamisonParker & Bear Vs. Shark

With an anticipation not felt since the first time I saw Elvis Costello live, I ventured down to what has become the de facto venue for roughly 80 percent of touring rock ‘n’ roll acts in San Francisco, the Bottom of the Hill club. And with the exception of hitting rush hour traffic on the way, the trip proved to be ultimately worthwhile as the prospect of seeing some of the most thrilling new bands performing on the same night came to fruition.
Hailing from Detroit, MI, Bear Vs. Shark opened the evening to a nearly sold-out audience and immediately bewildered the crowd with a harsh melding of ear-splitting metal and revival rock tunes. The group’s vocalist announced that for the majority of the show, he would only sing amongst the audience, choosing to dance and flail and scream into patrons’ faces rather than remain perched on stage with the rest of the five-piece group. This decision marked the peak of the group’s set as the music proved to be a pretty standard amalgamation of various genres.
JamisonParker seemed to have brought quite a few followers of their music in the door. From the first chord strummed by this duo, female audience members erupted into frenzied screams, hopefully geared more towards the band’s looks than their music. The duo incorporated computer-generated blips and drum machines to fill out their sound, which more often than not sounded exactly like Dashboard Confessional, only infinitely more sappy and weak. Stronger songwriting and fluent harmonies shook the super-emo kids to the core, especially on the tune “My So-Called Life,” a fitting theme song if the short-lived TV show ever comes back on the air for a reunion. If you’re into sad love songs sung by prepubescent balladeers, check out JamisonParker’s latest disc, Notes & Photographs.
Finally elevating the show to some semblance of real, angry rock, Vaux took the stage and impressed me from the get-go. With six members crowded on stage, including three guitar players (!) with one doubling on keyboards, the group executed a melodic hardcore, noisy enough to warrant a fledgling circle-pit and quiet enough, at times, to incite simpler, less hazardous forms of appreciation. From the stage lights to the fog to the perfectly timed head-banging, Vaux catapulted the show immensely. “Four Cornered Lives” proved to be the pinnacle of their set and coerced me into purchasing their latest disc, There Must Be Some Way To Stop Them. Check them out.
Coheed and Cambria has quickly become one of my favorite bands, so I was exceedingly anxious to see them live, and specifically to see if they could actually pull off some of their amazing vocal dynamics that they feature on their latest album, In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3, in a live setting. The band walked onstage to the haunting organ intro from the first track of Keeping Secrets and dove into “The Ring In Return,” a soaring epic metal piece; complete with vocalist Claudio Sanchez’s Geddy Lee meets Michael Jackson wail. The only problem was that apparently Claudio was suffering from some sort of extreme exhaustion, as he refrained from singing the songs in their entirety, and instead implored the crowd to fill in the blanks. Audience participation is fine, but towards the end of their set, Sanchez seemed to be completely out of breath and sometimes went a whole verse without approaching the microphone. Granted, the music was incredible, and the group’s bassist helped out when he could with vocals. Still, the set suffered from the absence of the band’s main attraction. Overall, I was still impressed by Coheed’s sincerity, energy and musicianship, though I’d like to witness one of their shows that didn’t seem so forced.
– Ryan Prado
– Photos by Eric Payne

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