This band has been to hell and back, having been through a bus accident that left their singer, Dryden Mitchell, with a broken neck, and less than a year later, having their guitar player, Terry Corso, quit, in the middle of a tour. They haven’t slowed down though, they are still out there rocking just as hard as they did when their first big single, “Movies” was tearing up the charts, and the road to their future seemed paved with gold.
The tiny troubadour was packed with fans, eager to see the band in one of their first small club dates since the big bus accident that had left the fate of the band in jeopardy. The band came out to thunderous applause, and kicked off the night, which was to include nearly all the tracks off their 2003 release TruANT. Noticeably missing form the set was the first single off that record, “These Days”. Most of the band’s hour and a half long set was definitely focused on the band’s newer material. Towards the end of the set, they did treat fans to older songs, such as “Courage”, “Wish”, and “Movies”. Of course, they had to close the set with the hit that propelled them into the mainstream, their rocking cover of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. Mitchell introduced the song by saying, “This is because child molestation is still cool.”, eliciting laughter from the audience.
The most fun part of the show was the eccentric and outlandish stage antics of Bassist Tye Zamora, and vocalist Mitchell. Zamora rocked the stage with his goofy expressions and near boundless energy, as he moved around the stage, his eyebrows echoing the speedy, walking lines he laid down on his six string bass. Mitchell also had his own brand of eccentricity, a more subdued style than the gregarious Zamora. He seemed always to be alternating between singing to no one at all and everyone at once. Between songs, he would avoid eye contact with the crowd, as if he were a 13 year old being scolded for being too loud at recess.
“Ok. So, tonight is not….you can’t be on the fence out there ok? You either fucking love us or hate us, that’s it.” Mitchell quipped to the stage in front of him, as the band started up the rocking tune “SS Recognize”, an older song that the band rehashed on their new record. It smacked of being written in a time when Limp Bizkit and Korn were gaining prominence, and stood in stark contrast to the band’s newer more reggae-rock-punk releases. It was entertaining to hear the phrase “Jump! Jump! Jump!” again, as its been missing from my concert going experiences since I swore off bands that misspell their names.
The band seemed mostly together, with a few small exceptions. That is of course to be expected, since new guitarist (who is in fact so new, that I didn’t even catch his name at the show), only joined the band relatively recently and is still getting used to the band’s repertoire. Drummer Mike Cosgrove kept the crowd’s heads bobbing all night though, taking minimal time away for drum breaks, but punctuating the slight changes that the band made to their songs for live performance with altered beats in places, letting the drums drop out when they were bridging from the album version of the song to the “remixed” and revised section of the song. My favorite one of these was the epilogue to “Apaga la luz”, a great rock/latin groove. At the close of the song, they continued, into another groove, speeding up the tempo and slowing it down, to coincide with Mitchell singing lines from the song in different order, mixing up the monotony of playing the song the same way they had been for months on tour.
This was a great show, which was a bit too focused on the newer material. The small club is where ant farm belongs, not in a huge arena, where they cant connect with fans, where they have to see Zamora’s facial expressions on a huge screen. Its good to have them back out and playing, good solid rock, without a gimmick or overproduced lyrics and music.
Consider me your apprentice, repentant yet hesitant.
Please show me a sign.
Come inside, remember who built your home, I built you flesh and bone.
