Saves The Day is another band I’ve been listening to for almost a decade now and has been the theme of every short-lived and failed relationship I’ve ever had.

This is as “emo” as things get but I don’t really care about that silly term. I love these guys and their music for years and it was amazing to finally see them live.

During this week, I was actually on holiday down by Clacton-on-Sea but since this was a once in a very rare opportunity, I decided to take the train from the south back to London for the evening just to see the band. I did get to sleep on my own bed after which is miles better than the crappy caravan beds and left the next morning.

Anyway, the venue was back in Camden, a place I would be visiting a few days later for the Camden Crawl. Specifically, it was the Electric Ballroom. I won’t get into the list of bands I’ve seen here now.

Support for the evening was Dinosaur Pile-Up who turned out to be a surprisingly amazing punk rock band. Their music was pretty tight and they sounded like a band who has been forever despite only having one record under their belt so far. An amazing three-piece band so much so that I saw them 5 days later during Camden Crawl. You should really check them out. Nothing completely unique and mind-blowing inventive about them but I haven’t listened to a good punk rock band like them in ages.

While the support band was playing, the place was pretty empty so I managed to push myself as far forward as possible and was almost at the front barrier. Perfect spot. Or so I thought.

Then it was finally time for Saves The Day. Chris looked exactly the same as he did in the At Your Funeral video only chubbier. No Glassjaw members with the band this time as Manny Carrero and Durijah Lang are now back full-time with Glassjaw.

Firefly was a perfect way to open the evening. The starting riff just set the tempo for the evening and got the crowd jumping right from the get-go.

I would love to go through each song individually but it was a long night and was a few weeks ago, so as usual, I’d cheat and list down the setlist which is again grabbed from Setlist.fm. I took a picture of the setlist but it has disappeared from my iPhone.

• Firefly
• Shoulder To The Wheel
• Anywhere With You
• 1984
• The End
• Cars & Calories
• Let It All Go
• Third Engine
• A Drag In D Flat
• Can’t Stay The Same
• Eulogy
• Freakish
• Kaleidoscope
• Z
• Nightingale
• What Went Wrong?
• Dying Day
• Deranged & Desperate
• See You
• Radio
• Where Are You?
• Head For The Hills
• In Reverie
• Jessie & My Whetstone
• Sell My Old Clothes, I’m Off To Heaven
• Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots
• Driving In The Dark
• Rocks Tonic Juice Magic
• Three Miles Down (encore)
• At Your Funeral (encore)

Prior to the gig, I was worried the band would mostly play songs from the newer records but thankfully, they didn’t. Most of the songs I completely love from them are from Stay What You Are and Through Being Cool.

Freakish and Nightingale were surprises for me as they are both beautiful songs. Rocks Tonic Juice Magic was sung out loud with everyone in the Ballroom. I still think it has the most brilliant lines ever like:

“Let me take this awkward saw and run it against your thighs. Cut some flesh away, I’ll carry this piece of you with me”

“My heart is on the floor, why don’t you step on it?”

It’s simply a thing of beauty, poetic really. You really need to read through the whole lyrics. Or listen to the song.

Closing out with At Your Funeral was perfection. Well, almost.

Despite the brilliant set which spanned the entirety of their records and b-sides, two of my favourite songs were missing namely You Vandal and My Sweet Fracture. Songs which best define my relationships of old.

It was shame not hearing some songs live but I didn’t really care after the gig since at that point, I was completely blown away by their amazing performance and the fact that I’ve finally seen one of my favourite bands for the past decade.

If you go back to the setlist and count, they played 30 songs this evening, that is quite something.

A band who always made me feel better as I sang and screamed along to their songs with every failed attempt at a relationship.

Also, if you would want to hear my actual thoughts after the gig, you can follow this link to Winkball as I was interviewed by them outside Electric Ballroom. You will noticed that my voice is a bit off due to all the singing. It was that kind of evening.

March 2007 was the date when Thursday payed their last headlining show in London. On April 2007, I moved to London coming from Manila. Missed by a month.

In May 2008, Thursday played two shows in the Philippines, one in Manila and the other in Camarines Sur. It was quite an ordeal listening to everyone’s stories about it.

It wasn’t until April of 2009 that I finally had the chance to see Thursday perform live. This was no headlining show though as they supported Taking Back Sunday for Give It A Name 2009.

Last year, they supported Rise Against at Brixton. Despite seeing them twice already, they don’t count as proper Thursday shows as they were only support acts which means playing 6-7 songs.

In hindsight, I did get to hear Jet Black New Year live twice now.

This 2011, they finally announced a headlining show at KCLSU and I was quick to buy tickets even though Asobi Seksu was playing on the same day. There was no contest between the two as I’ve seen headline Asobi Seksu twice. It was a shame though as they also had a new album.

Speaking of new albums, Thursday released No Devolucion recently which has turned out to be quite a crazy good record despite being experimental and light years different than all the other records they’ve made. Thursday with synths? Unheard of.

The venue was KCLSU which is a pretty intimate venue with cheap (in London) beer.

First support was Attack! Vipers! which is another post-hardcore band. Yes, I am too old for this stuff.

Second support was a slightly familiar band, Circa Survive, and throughout their set I was thinking who they supported before as I was pretty sure I’ve seen them before. It was a choice between Funeral For A Friend and Taking Back Sunday. Further investigation when I got home proved it was Taking Back Sunday at the now demolished Astoria.

Their set was much fun and Anthony’s unusual vocals and antics on stage are always fun to watch. I haven’t listened to them in years and would have to find the time to do so at some point.

Like most bands with new albums, Thursday started the evening with a new song, Fast To The End, which is the first track of their new album. This was then followed by  an assault of more new songs; Magnets Caught In A Metal Heart, No Answers and Past And Future Remains.

With the new songs introduced to the crowd, it was time for some old songs. As it’s the 10 year anniversary of Full Collapse, Thursday’s debut album, they’ve been doing Full Collapse tours in the US where the album is played in it’s entirety in the correct order.

Despite the new flavour and brilliance of No Devolucion, Full Collapse is still Thursday’s best album and the crowd (and I) were more than ready for it, singing (screaming) along to every song.

The whole album was one big highlight but if I have to be forced to specify songs it would be Paris In Flames and Wind-Up both of which I finally heard live.

For their encore, they played Turnpike Divides from their new album. Would have loved to hear Jet Black New Year again but this evening was absolutely fantastic as it was.

Finally seeing Thursday perform a headlining show was quite an experience especially with all the new songs and the whole Full Collapse album.

It needs to be mentioned that Geoff’s epic mic flailing was drastically less this evening.

I would always be in line to watch Thursday live and do a proper headline show where they play random songs from all their albums.

Yes, I just made up an excuse to see Thursday again. Not that I really needed to anyway.

When I first heard to Architecture In Helsinki, I instantly loved them. Their brilliant and catchy indie pop was a nice and cheerful mix to all the rock music I was listening to around 7 years ago and was completely refreshing at times.

Discovered them along with The Go! Team whom I’ve seen at the beginning of the year. For some reason, both bands have not been touring for a few years, haven’t played in London but came back this year with new records in tow.

The venue was XOYO which has quickly become my favourite small venue. After all, it is a venue in Shoreditch which is such a vibrant place although not as crazy and crowded as Camden.

Support for the evening was The Russian Futurists, an indie pop band from Canada. Yes, we have Architecture In Helsinki who actually hail from Australia and The Russian Futurists from Canada. It’s a fun twist on band names.

Their music was a little slower paced but catchy as you’d expect from pop and was a mix of indie styles which made their set very interesting despite not much enthusiasm from the crowd. Not as fast and upbeat as AiH, but a great support band. Too bad I missed them on both dates of Camden Crawl. It would have been nice to have seen this lot again.

Now, Architecture In Helsinki, where do I even start as it has now been more than half a month and 4 gigs after this event.

As this was a tour of their new album, most of the songs were from Moment Bends which is a pretty good record in itself and well worth the the four year wait since Places Like This (released in 2007).

For some reason, I always thought Architecture In Helsinki had at least 9 members which made me wonder how 9 people would fit in XOYO’s tiny platform of a stage.

It seems somewhere between Places Like This and Moment Bends, the band somehow trimmed down to 5.

The new songs sounded as cheerful as they do on record. Unlike old records, Moment Bends has a positive tone to it’s songs and by this, I mean the lyrics as well as the tune. Most of the new songs sounded quite polished live.

Highlights of the evening would be Escapee, which is my favourite from the new album, and old songs which included Hold Music, Debbie, Like It Or Not, Do The Whirlwind, and It’s 5!.

Surprisingly, they did not perform Cemetery much to the disappointment of everyone in the venue.

The show seemed quite short but was definitely sweet. AiH brandished their new songs as well as I expected them to do so after years of listening to them.

Seeing them live was very much worth the wait despite the fact that they didn’t play Cemetery which is the most song about a cemetery.

My trifecta of seeing The Go! Team, of Montreal and Architecture In Helsinki is now complete and I will most gladly see any of these bands again for some brilliantly uplifting indie pop.

Winning tickets online through various websites is obviously all about luck. Enter an email address or retweet a message and you are in the draw for free tickets.

I rarely luck out when it comes to winning tickets online. The iTunes Festival has been a nightmare of frustration for the past two years. 62 dates spanning 2 months in total every July and I’ve never one tickets through them.

Of course, receiving free tickets for Foals and Two Door Cinema Club for the iTunes Festival last year does not count as I got it via Twitter directly from the band.

So when I heard about the Spotify Behind the Music event, I was not expecting winning tickets to the show but I signed up and hoped as one of my new band discoveries in the past month, The Naked and Famous was included in the line up.

Aside from The Naked and Famous, Delphic was headlining with Pony Pony Run Run supporting as well. A DJ set by La Roux was also mentioned.

The event was also in promotion of the new Nissan Juke which really looks like a joke.

Lo and behold, an email confirming winning 2 tickets for the event was waiting in my inbox a few days later.

I was beyond happy. The Naked and Famous only playing date in London for their tour is on May 20, which is the same date as an all-time favourite band’s show in London. This band is Taking Back Sunday and with tickets booked for this, a return to the original line-up and a new album coming up, it’s not one event I would want to miss either.

The closest gig The Naked and Famous is playing in aside from London is Oxford which is around 2 hours drive away. I was seriously considering purchasing tickets for this and driving up to Oxford to watch them.

Since the email included a plus one, I invited someone who arrived after the doors opened. At this point, the queue went all the way round the back of Koko, the longest I’ve seen at this venue, longer even than Jack’s Mannequin.

The place was quite packed already, so we decided to stay on the upper levels and stood by the stairs which provided us with a fantastic view of the stage. This isn’t normal for me at Koko, but it was more than welcome as the view was great.

If you are somewhat familiar with the bands on this bill, you’d notice a flavour with the music the bands play. All are bands which thrown in a bit of electro/synth but not in a overly excessive way.

The first support act was Pony Pony Run Run who according to their wikipedia entry are a French power pop band whose members are G, A, and T. Lovely. Indeed, they were pop-y but they put on a decent show. Adequate way to start the evening. Their live performance is way better than their actual recordings. They clearly put on a much better vibe and more energy on stage which is all good of course.

It’s been a few weeks since the event but as I’m listening to their songs on Spotify, I’m pretty sure the synths were toned down at the gig which gave way to some pretty neat guitar work.

As the event was sponsored by Nissan Juke, a huge screen on the stage dropped down during breaks and played loops of videos of the car and some behind the scenes recording with La Roux. Seeing the video the first time was ok, but after the xxth time, it turned out to be real annoying. Thankfully, having someone to talked to helped a lot.

Up next was the band I was looking forward to the most, The Naked And Famous.Their set was pretty standard pulling songs from their album Passive Me, Aggressive You. They started with Punching In A Dream and closed their set with their current biggest hit, Young Blood. Other songs thrown were All Of This, No Way, Eyes and Girls Like You. No surprise b-sides which could have been brilliant as Bells is a pretty catchy tune.

They sound brilliant on record but this show left much to be desired. As soon as they started, I knew something was a bit off. The male lead vocals seemed to be quite low and this sort of dumbed down the experience. Sure, most of their songs are female vocal heavy but the male vocals balanced this out and provided an excellent blend. This was most evident during Girls Like You which happens to be my favourite song from their album.

In short, I was slightly disappointed by their set and performance but this won’t stop me from seeing them again live if I have the chance. Maybe Oxford it is then.

Now it was time for a DJ set, a somewhat special one as it was La Roux who was spinning. Unfortunately, the next hour solidified my absolute disdain for DJ sets. I’m all for watching a band or someone perform on stage, but the wait for the next band was long and painful.

First of, we had the same video on repeat being shown on the huge white screen on the stage. La Roux was spinning on the DJ table which was on the side of the stage and not really visible to anyone. Had this table been placed in the middle of the stage or a video of her spinning tracks shown on the white screen instead, then things would have been mildly better.

Next, the music. I really don’t get club and dance music. Thrown in a band on stage actually performing on stage and I’m all for it. Watching a DJ spin tracks doesn’t do it for me. This night was worse due to the repeated blasts of video advertising of Spotify and the Nissan Juke.

I felt really sorry for my friend who was also not enjoying the experience. As the music was loud, this didn’t provide the atmosphere for conversation which could have distracted us.

At 11 in the evening, La Roux was FINALLY done with her DJ set and Delphic came up stage. I’ve been listening to them for quite sometime and could never really get into them. Their set at Koko was more of the same, it was fun and amusing to watch but I have nothing special to say. It was good to finally see them though, they’re still not a band I’d go out of my way just to see.

At least I get to tick them of my list of London-based bands that I should see since I live in London not that such a list even exists in the first place.

Their set included Halycon, Doubt, Clarion Call, Red Lights, and Counterpoint to mention a few which I can still remember.

The show finished closed to midnight which is unusual for gigs I go to especially since it was a Tuesday. Thankfully, I still made it to the last tube going north.

Overall, the evening was good enough for a free gig. With The Naked and Famous on the bill, I would have even paid for the show but I think I’d be quite disappointed if I had to shell out money for this one.

Apparently, this event was also Spotify’s first live streaming show and it’s always pretty cool to know you where part of something historic despite the hack Spotify announced a few days ago to Spotify users who have been around since they were invite only and in beta.

Since La Roux was part of the whole Behind The Hits campaign and was in the venue anyway, wouldn’t it have been better to have her perform instead? This would be leagues better than a DJ set. If this isn’t possible, then give us something better to watch/distract ourselves with as not everyone enjoys DJ sets.

Still, it was a good first live streaming event and I sure hope I’d be lucky enough to win tickets next time, provided that the lineup is equally as good without the DJ sets.

Four years ago, I watched Glassjaw perform an iconic show at Brixton Academy on 7.7.7 (July 7, 2007). It was an amazing show.

On this gig four years ago, they mentioned work is being done on their already highly anticipated 3rd studio album. The last album, Worship And Tribute, was released almost a decade ago in 2002.

Four years later, there is still no news of it. Our Color Green EP was released earlier this year as a taste of songs they already had some of which where played back in 2007 at Brixton.

It is pretty much an understatement that fans are eagerly anticipating this album so when Glassjaw announced their show at The Forum, I immediately purchased tickets. It’s Glassjaw and it was on my day off so buying a ticket was a no-brainer.

To add, Glassjaw also mentioned that this show would be the launch of another EP called Coloring Book which would be handed out to attendees after the show.

Not that I would even miss the show in the first place, but it would be another landmark Glassjaw show which I would be a part of like Brixton on 7.7.7.

A taste of a new track, Gold, was streaming from their site for a month. Listening to the track was a magical experience.

Support for the evening was a death metal band called Napalm Death who hail from Birmingham and have been around almost as long as I have walked the face of this planet we call earth.

Despite the fact that they’ve been around forever, I’ve never heard of them before and most of this can be blamed on their genre. I’ve never been a death metal fan and their set, although entertaining to watch, didn’t really do anything for me. Decent, but not my cup of tea. Not by a mile.

The usual wait in between bands but Glassjaw came on stage soon enough.

This time there was no 4-5 minute intro with the lights dimmed and the band slowly building up the crowd.

Instead, they kicked off the evening right away with You Think You’re (John Fucking Lennon). It started out with much intensity which stayed at this level although the night.

Unfortunately, I was nursing a sprained wrist (which I still am 3 weeks after) so didn’t participate much with the crowd moshing, pushing and shoving. I tried to stand back and simply enjoy the brilliance which is Glassjaw.

Here’s the full setlist as once again, I’ve left this write-up in the cold for far too long. Again, it’s from Setlist.fm.

• You Think You’re (John Fucking Lennon)
• Tip Your Bartender
• Mu Empire
• Stars
• Ape Dos Mil
• The Gillette Calvalcade of Sports
• Pink Roses
• Jesus Glue
• Natural Born Farmer
• All Good Junkies Go To Heaven
• El Mark
• Convectuoso
• Two Tabs of Mescaline
• Siberian Kiss
• Black Nurse (2nd set)
• Gold (2nd set)
• Vanilla Poltergeist Snake (2nd set)
• Miracle In Inches (2nd set)
• Stations Of The New Cross (2nd set)
• Daytona White (2nd set)

As you notice, there was no Cosmopolitan Bloodloss which was quite a bummer. The first set was the creme of the crop when it comes to Glassjaw songs with songs from Our Color Green thrown in for good measure.

If I had to pick two other songs from the set as highlights, I’d go for Ape Dos Mil and All Good Junkies Go To Heaven.

Glassjaw left the stage after Siberian Kiss and of course, everyone chanted for an encore.

What we got was so much more than just an encore. Glassjaw came back on stage and played all 6 of their new songs from The Coloring Book EP in succession as listed on the EP.

Gold was pure brilliance and was magical to hear live. They ended the evening with Daytona White which is a great but somewhat slow song.

As it was new, nobody really new the song and there wasn’t much intensity to it. It’s not the kind of song you’d close an evening with.

The evening was great and Glassjaw was on top form. The new songs were absolutely perfect but they could have closed with a song which should have brought us to such a height and then just dropped. Cosmopolitan Bloodloss would have done this.

With the show over, I bought a shirt as my old 7.7.7. shirt was handed over to a friend in Manila. Trying to restrain myself from buying gig shirts as I already have a ton and they are quite expensive compared to Threadless shirts but this was a special night and it is Glassjaw.

As I walked out the door, a copy of The Coloring Book was handed over to me, a reminder of another historic night with Glassjaw, a band I’ve seen as many times as I’ve been back in London (FOUR).

Note: A quick search online (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, and Glassjaw.com) seems to show that The Coloring Book EP is not available online. Ace!