Say Anythng – Say Anything
Lights up and six men dressed like Don Draper on a casual Sunday afternoon, minus the kick ass cardigan, launch into a frenzied set packed with energy, fury and rocking out with ones cock out. Central to this band of crazed young rockers is one Max Bemis, rock star, triple threat, recovering addict and brand new poster boy for living with bi-polar.
As the set grows and swells, Bemis, lead singer of Say Anything, becomes more disheveled, looking less like Don Draper with each passing moment of frenzied musical bliss, until he stands, catching his breathe, sweat dripping from his wife beater in front of a crowd of worshipers. Classic cuts like, Alive With The Glory of Love, Wow, I can get Sexual Too, Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat, Woo and Baby Girl I’m A Blur, which is an apt description of Say Anything live, have whipped the crowd into a frenzy that would put most riots to shame.
The first encore finds master Bemis, alone on stage, guitar slung around his neck for the first time of the night. The crowd convinces him to play A Walk Through Hell, and a tender moment as Max and the crowd perform an inspirational duet, singing every lyric together follows.
After the dust of the first encore settles, the band rejoins Max on stage and launch into Crushed, Spores and the incredibly scathing and genius of Admit It. With the encore done, so clearly is Bemis, and when he exits the stage, he is gone, done with this show that he just poured everything into.
There live show is not the only time that Bemis bares his soul and puts it out there for the whole world to judge. He does it every night on stage, and has once again pressed it into a disc for mass consumption.
While 2004’s Say Anything……Is A Real Boy first offered a glimpse into the psyche of the talented and troubled lead singer, and 2007’s varied double offering, Say Anything……In Defense Of The Genre, delved deeper into the darkest parts of Bemis’s mind and the most troubling times in his life, the just released Say Anything turns much of the focus outward onto the rest of the world. The subjects touched on Say Anything attack a world filled with power hungry, irresponsible people and painful love triangles while also taking on the subject of the demise of one of Bemis’s own relationships that dotted Defense and his new Marriage to Sherri Dupree of Eisley.
Nothing compares to hearing a song live for the first time. As Bemis spit the lyrics to Hate Everyone to a crowd filled with many who hadn’t heard the track yet, the venom and clarity with which Bemis alternated between the delicate hate of the verses and the bouncy chorus where over and over again, Bemis informs us, “I hate Everyone”, awakened the crowd to one of the Say Anything’s best new tracks.
Bemis taps into this anger again later on, on the track Young, Dumb and Stung, but points that anger in a more positive direction, aiming it at the people throughout your life who try and tear you down and make you doubt who you are. The lyrics “Don’t care what you think, you think I care.” Define a song where he rails against a childhood friend that turned his back on him and everyone else who would doubt who he is.
The circus feel to the opening of Mara and Me is classic Say Anything, and the song itself lives up to this feeling through the first few moments as Bemis talks about babies with guns and the Kings of Leon, before the music stops and he plainly speaks the words “Wait a second- I can’t write the same damn song over and over again.” From there the song goes schizophrenic with Jeff and Jake Turner helping out with vocals, and creating one of the stand out tracks on Say Anything.
Say Anything was said to be self titled to represent a starting over point for the band or a re-definition of who and where they are now, and the album manages to come through on this promise, as it introduces a band that is more confident in who they are and what they’re doing. The songs show Bemis’s ability to look outside of himself and still write awesome songs that walk the blurred lines between classic rock, pop punk and post everything. This Say Anything album is a walk through Bemis’s re-built life the way that …..In Defense Of The Genre was a walk through the ruins of his previous one.
Say Anything – Hate Everyone
Say Anything – Mara And Me
Say Anything – Young Dumb And Stung
Tags: Aaron Long, Eisly, In Defense of the Genre, Is A Real Boy, Max Bemis, Say Anything, Sheri Dupree, The Pheonix, Toronto
