It seems as if Jamie, booker extraodrinaire is making up for his lack of St. Andrew’s shows with monster line-ups instead. In this case, it was the attack of the emo rock, which didn’t leave much of a mark unfortunately. In fact, the most energy from any band in the duration of the extravaganza was from the opener, who only played five songs!! In any case, the show got me out of my room, and away from studying, which essentially was all I could ask for.

FAIRWEATHER impressed the hell out of me. I reviewed their demo this summer and thought it was pretty grand, but seeing them live was a whole other experience. Combine the likes of SAVES THE DAY, LIFETIME, THE STRYDER, and maybe some FASTBREAK, you have the latest signees to the Equal Vision Records roster. If you like your poppy rock with some sweet hardcore breakdowns, and all the melodic vocals still intact, this band will knock you off your feet.

Up next were the DAMN PERSONALS, who didn’t really float my boat. The first thing that I noticed was that they had a lot of hair collectively between the four members of the band. Musically, it was some of that rock stuff that Big Wheel Recreation can’t stop putting out. Nothing inspiring, or really all that creative either, but it wasn’t quite terrible. I imagine it was tough for them to cater to a crowd that didn’t seem to know who the heck they were, or didn’t really care either.

For those of you in the DC area who were fortunate enough to check out SUNSHINE with AT THE DRIVE ON, on October 19th, and were at this show, you were in for a treat again. Filling in for the now broken up, ENKINDELS, SUNSHINE rocked very hard, with their often disjointed emocore sound, eerily similar to the aforementioned band with the afros. Hailing all the way from the Czech Republic, SUNSHINE plowed through about 9 songs with fury and precision, though not much of a stage presence. I guess that is what happens when you are a three piece. Their lead singer looked like he was about forty years old, and that his frail body would snap at any moment as the songs got heavy. It was just bizarre, and their bassist/keyboardist, made the funniest faces while playing the keyboard. It cracked me up. Defintely a band to look out for.

This was my first time seeing HOT ROD CIRCUIT, after missing their College Park trek last year with the infamous GET UP KIDS. I was amazed on how tight they sounded, and with the level of energy put into their set. I’ve always thought that HOT ROD CIRCUIT was a pretty good exception from the confines of standard emorock, and that’s definitely due to their propensity to get very heavy every now and then — certainly my favorite aspect of their songwriting skills. Since the show was running late, they were limited to about 6 songs, but the crowd began to show some signs of life at least. Pick up their new cd, it’s worth your while.

JEBIDIAH — I was hungry. I went to Subway with some friends. It was good. Thank you Jebidiah.

Finally, this marathon of an evening came down to the two bands that I had wanted to see the most, RIVER CITY HIGH and JIMMY EAT WORLD. RCH were super tight, and loud! They play that kind of feel good emopunk, which doesn’t quite get as agressive as I like it, but it strays far from the land of wusses. There is a strong HOT WATER MUSIC, ANN BERETTA vibe to them, but the music is just a notch slower. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the names to any of their songs, but they had played stuff that the crowd seemed familar with, and one song had this awesome bass hook. I guess RIVER CITY HIGH had done well, because they were selling tons of merch after their set.

Belive it or not, I had heard only one JIMMY EAT WORLD song before last night. It’s safe to say that I’ve been missing quite alot. Wow! Really deep and catchy music that grinds away at your heart. I really dug how textured the guitar sound was, combined the infectious vocals. I only stuck around for 5 songs because I was getting very tired, and I needed to study, but for the other 300 or so people who were mouthing every word, it was a great way to cap off a night blessed with music.