AWmusic

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

A man in a gas mask, face fully obscured, flickers in black and white and classic film style on the back wall. His hand rises and the words, I Am The Messenger write themselves across his hand. The crowd is going nuts as Aaron Gillespie walks out onto stage first, and stands on the stool behind his drum kit, arms outstretched, in a Christ like pose, reminiscent of Scott Stapp, but far less arrogant. The rest of Underoath, vocalist Spencer Chamberlin, guitarists Tim McTague and James Smith, bassist Grant Brandell and sample/keyboard player Christopher Dudley, join Gillespie on stage and he leads them into Breathing in a New Mentality with an incredible display of drumming that has to make anyone who would deride the founding member of Underoath and lead singer of The Almost, myself included, take notice of his considerable talent on the drums.

It doesn’t stay a one man show for long, as Spencer Chamberlin, scrawny with more hair than flesh on his body, emits his trademark scream and growling vocals, and McTague and Smith pound out the incredible lines that have made Underoath a tour de force in almost any scene that ends in the word core.

The sounds of an old school projector clicking clue the already insane crowd that Underoath are about to reach back to 2006’s Define the Great Line for In Regards to Myself, giving Gillespie the chance to stretch his vocal chords, singing the hook, “You’re sleeping a bed of shame,” to which Chamerlin growls back “Let the light breathe some new life into this room, It’s what keeps you coming back.”

Neither Underoath or the crowd is letting up as Chamberlin screams the opening words of It’s A Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door from 2006’s genre defining They’re Only Chasing Safety. The crowd croons along with the softer more melodic moments of the song, and chant along in one voice, “I’m drowning in my sleep.” As Chamberlin screams over the chant.

The crowd’s heat and passion are fueling the band as they continue to pound through a set that included. Emergency Broadcast : The End Is Near, I Don’t Feel Very Receptive Today, You’re Ever So Inviting and The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed.

By the time Gillespie asks, “Can you feel your heart beat racing? Can you taste the fear in her sweat?” The crowd is so hyped that it seems that the roof is going to come off, and when A Boy Brushed Red, Living In Black and White’s break down hits and Chamberlin again unleashes his surprising power, the pit erupts.

The set continues with Desolate Earth: The End Is Hear and Returning Empty Handed, before Chamberlin tells the crowd that they’ve been the best of the tour (cheap pop), and then with his religion planted firmly on his sleeve he does his best to spread the word of Christ without trying to sound like a pretentious ass. The crowd clearly feels it as Jesus gets the biggest pop of the night.

He then announces that this is the last song and they break into Desperate Times, Desperate Measures of their latest release, 2008’s Lost In The Sound of Separation.

Darkness follows but the crowd wants more and Underoath obliges returning for their encore and playing Too Bright To See, Too Loud To Hear and Define’s Writing on The Walls, before retiring for good, and leaving behind a drained and wholly satisfied crowd.

Underoath live is an amazing example of what can happen when talent meets unbridled energy. Gillespie, for all his awkward ginger faults, ie. The Almost, is perhaps, one of the best drummers working today and seeing Underoath live proves one thing, it is definitely Gillespie’s band, but it’s Spencer Chamberlin’s show.

Underoath – A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White
Underoath – In Regards To Myself
Underoath – Desperate Times, Desperate Measures