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.

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.

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!

Among them are Funeral For A Friend, Glassjaw, Saves The Day, Taking Back Sunday, and Thursday, all of which I’ll be seeing again this year which is one of the hundred reasons which make 2011 such an incredible year.

On the 25th of March it was time for Funeral For A Friend whom I’ve seen three times already, the best of which was their farewell show to Darren last year at Shepherd’s Bush Empire where they played Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation in it’s entirety. This was such an amazing show but regrettably, I had seats so didn’t enjoy the mayhem.

The venue this time was Relentless Garage in Highbury and Islington, a venue I have not been to since the Witchita 10 year anniversary show with Los Campesinos!

First support was a band called Tiger Please whom I never heard off before but turned out to be pretty fun to watch. Neat tunes and good singing. The only thing which really bothered me was the vocalists ridiculously stupid hair which he had to part every few seconds from his face. It was distracting to say the least. Check the video for their song, Autumn Came The Fall to see what I mean.

Sadly, now that I’m listening to them again on Myspace, they remind me of Kings of Leon which is not a good thing. With that said, I’ll try to remember their name and listen to them more at some point.

Second support was a metalcore band (as per wikipedia entry) called Rise To Remain. To make things simple, I’m just going to say that I did not like them at all. I guess I’m too all for this kind of music. I’d continue to listen to screaming bands I’ve known since I was younger but I don’t think I can ever appreciate a new one at this point.

With a new record out in the last few weeks called Welcome Home Armageddon, one would expect Funeral For A Friend to open with a new song but they started the evening with Roses For The Dead. Again. I am pretty sure that in the 4 times I’ve seen them, they have started every show with Roses For The Dead. It’s not a bad song at all, as it’s really, really good but come one, a little variety would be lovely. Surprise us.

They followed this with another favourite, Rookie Of The Year before finally settling into a new song entitled Sixteen.

Here’s the setlist courtesy of Setlist.fm to make things easier for everyone as I really can’t write properly and it has already been an eternity since this gig.

• Roses For The Dead
• Rookie Of The Year
• Sixteen
• Juneau
• Aftertaste
• The End Of Nothing
• Serpents In Solitude
• Red Is The New Black
• Damned If You Do, Dead If You Don’t
• Monsters
• History
• Spinning Over The Island
• Into Oblivion (Reunion) (encore)
• Front Row Seats To The End Of The World (encore)
• Escape Artists Never Die (encore)

As you may notice, only 5 songs come from the new record and the rest are crowd favourites spanning songs from their career. To note, there are no songs from Memory And Humanity which is probably their weakest album but hearing either Kicking and Screaming or Maybe I Am? would have been a treat.

The Garage is usually a sauna during gigs but this time, the venue was quite cool. I did avoid the moshpit which got a bit crazy.

Funeral For A Friend will always be a band I enjoy to see love, singing along to favourites such as Monsters, History, Juneau, etc. Gigs and bands like this get my heart racing and make me feel alive, and this evening, Funeral For a Friend didn’t disappoint.

With the last record, they sound as good as they did years ago despite changes in their lineup. It’s nice to see a band like them still go on and create music.

I had the chance of seeing The Decemberists at HMV Forum a few years ago right after the release of The Hazards of Love. This was back in November 18, 2009 which was during the Internet blackout at our new place and gigs piled up one after the other such as Deftones, Mew, Muse, etc.

For that show, they played two sets, the first of which was The Hazards of Love in it’s entirety and this was quite a memorable experience. The second set was composed of a mix from all their other albums at the time but sadly, no The Mariner’s Revenge Song. As mentioned by someone in the crowd while I was leaving, you haven’t really experienced The Decemberists until you’ve seen them perform The Mariner’s Revenge Song.

With this in mind as well as a new album and the fact that the gig was again on my day off, I didn’t think twice about purchasing tickets as soon as the gig was announced.

The venue for this evening is a popular London music venue which surprisingly, I’ve never been too. It’s the Apollo Hammersmith, also known by it’s sponsors name, HMV Apollo.

Size-wise, Apollo Hammersmith is around the same size as of Brixton Academy. One can actually make a direct comparison between the two since they have almost the same layout including a slight gradient on the floor which made viewing the stage so much easier. Compared to Brixton though, it just seemed and felt a little bit dirtier. Weird. When it comes to acoustics though, I have to say it blows Brixton Academy out of the water.

Support for the evening was Blind Pilot who are also an indie folk band from Portland, Oregon similar to The Decemberists. Their sound was quite different though since they used less instruments but they pulled of an imaginative set. They put on a very enjoyable set and were perfect in setting up the atmosphere for the headlining band. If you have to listen to just one song from them, try 3 Rounds And A Sound.

Having a support band this time was a welcome option as there was none at The Forum as The Decemberists played two sets anyway.

Bands with a new record released normally start the show with a a new song from the new record. For The Decemberists first song, they dug real deep and played Shiny which is from the very early 5 Songs EP.

A nice change to hook in longtime fans first as I’ve sometimes found new songs as opening numbers as a bit alienating at times. After the first song, they moved on to a trifecta of The King Is Dead tunes with Down By The Water, Calamity Song and Rise To Me.

Here’s the full setlist from the evening to simplify things. Again, from Setlist.fm.

• Shiny
• Down By The Water
• Calamity Song
• Rise to Me
• We Both Go Down Together
• The Bagman’s Gambit
• Won’t Want for Love
• An Interlude
• The Crane Wife 1 and 2
• The Crane Wife 3
• The Rake’s Song
• Don’t Carry it All
• Rox in the Box
• This is Why We Fight
• Sixteen Military Wives
• The Hazards of Love 4 (encore 1)
• The Mariner’s Revenge Song (encore 1)
• June Hymn (encore 2)

The band had Sara Watkins on tour with them providing violin and vocals as Becky (Hazards of Love) was no longer around. Her singing voice was first put to the test on Won’t Want For Love and I have to say, she did a pretty good job.

Playing The Crane Wife 1 and 2 followed by The Crane Wife 3 was a simply lovely. As the title suggests, the two songs go hand in hand and deserve to be played in succession.

The energy in the crowd spiked during songs such as We Both Go Down Together, The Rake’s Song, and Rox in the Box.

Prior to starting this evening, I had my mind set that I’d be happy if they played This Is Why We Fight and/or The Mariner’s Revenge Song. This Is Why We Fight is such a lovely song and it easily became my favourite song from The King Is Dead. So when they started playing the song, I almost couldn’t contain my excitement. If I get my act together, this would be one of the first songs I’d learn playing on a guitar.

The last time I saw them, I remember the interactivity between the band (mostly Colin) and the crowd. At The Forum, he asked everyone to go quiet, sit down and slowly stand up at his command. It was a wonderful experience.

It was during the song Sixteen Military Wives and a similar thing happened here at the Apollo. We did the “la-di-dah” part over and over again. Colin had everyone gradually soften the singing close to making it a whisper and then slowly making it louder. Even though the song dragged on for quite sometime, it was ridiculously good fun.

The Decemberists left the stage but of course came back for an encore which started of with The Hazards of Love 4, a nice and slow song. Before proceeding with the next song, further instructions to the crowd where given with the help of Chris Funk as audience participation was needed for the next song. This involved screaming like being eaten by a whale. Of course, everyone knew that the next song would be The Mariner’s Revenge Song much to my delight yet again. I’m plenty sure I wasn’t the only one who felt the excitement and joy at this moment.

When the whale part eventually came, everyone really did scream. It was way fun watching members of the band acting out the song on stage. The Mariner’s Revenge Songs is simply one of those epic songs with a lovely story as well.

At this point, I was more than just satisfied with the incredible set The Decemberists put on but the band came back on stage for another song, June Hymn which is also from The King Is Dead.

This evening, like the other Decemberist show, was another memorable experience. It is truly amazing seeing such a talented band onstage and completely enjoying themselves and drawing the crowd into the performance.