Brand New & Manchester Orchestra @ The Hollywood Palladium

‘Twas a hot Hollywood night when me and the bf strolled up to the Palladium will call to find that alas, there was no photo pass (that’s my way of saying sorry, no photos)–I could photoshop some angst for you, if you’d like.

Anyway, we wiggled in just before Manchester Orchestra started up, and although I don’t know them well, they def were a natural pick as support for Brand New. The song that really caught my attention was Now That You’re Home (remember the video?). After rocking straight through a few songs, singer Andy Hull commented on the “nice” temperment of the audience–“You know who has the mic and I respect that.” Was it rapt attention or polite patience in anticipation of Brand New? *Shrug*

We were standing closest to Chris Freeman, who is listed as the band’s keyboardist, but is a multi-talented music man. Keys, tamborine, drums, screaming, vocals and a WHOLE lotta passion was spewing out of that man, let me tell you. He even played for a bit with his shirt pulled over his head. I didn’t get an entire set list, but I know they played:

Now That You’re Home

My Friend Marcus

I’ve Got Friends

Everything To Nothing

The River

The Only One

Then it was time for Brand New. They opened with a fierce verion of Sink and there was a lot of screaming and projected imagery of owls and spiders and beating hearts. Since I haven’t really given Daisy all that much play in my iTunes, I couldn’t tell you if there was another song or two in between that and Sowing Season. I really connected during that song because there were weird vintage images of like, sinus cavities. Those troublesome devils.

The middle of the set list was PRIME:

The Archers Bows Have Broken

Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t

Sic Transit Gloria (the audience was SO AWESOME at singing the “up the stairs” part)

The No Seatbelt Song

Jude Law and a Semester Abroad

Seventy Times 7

Luca

I felt like it went downhill from there, with Jesus Christ, You Won’t Know–oh, and Jesse told us we wouldn’t know for like, half an hour–Take Apart Your Head and You Stole. Then they played a song but I couldn’t decipher a single word (and you’d think, coming from the Patrick Stump school of enunciation, I’d have the skill set for it) but I watched images of a house being blown to pieces and a lady dancing in circles. Then came At The Bottom and Play Crack The Sky… AND NO ENCORE.

Someone who saw the set list said they were supposed to play until 11:50, but they stopped at around 11:20. Hmm. Whatever. I tell myself they wouldn’t have played The Quiet Things based on the set list posted on Absolutepunk BUT they may have played Jaws Theme Swimming, which irks me a bit.

But maybe not having an encore when an audience expects it is kind of a refreshing twist. I don’t know, I don’t really love Brand New live–they always sort of give off the vibe that they don’t really want to be there. That’s why I didn’t go see them the last few times I came to LA.

Have you seen them on this tour? What’d you think?

I found a Twitterer who enoyed it: