Jars of Clay / Seabird at the Bijou
OK, it's been a long time since I've written a grilled cheese post, so here goes.
Monday night I headed to the Bijou in downtown Knoxville to see Jars of Clay. This is one of a handful of bands I've really wanted to see live (another being Weird Al, who I caught last summer at the Tennessee Theater), so I pretty much had to go to this concert.
What I've liked about Jars of Clay is they've had something of an acoustic leaning from what I can tell--I'm notoriously ignorant of musical terminology, but I know I generally like the style. (Although the acoustic thing is more or less true depending on the album--their latest, The Long Fall Back to Earth has more of an 80's pop influence.) And lyrically, they generally write songs with some sort of meaning behind them, yet they steer clear of the repetitive, shallow Christian rock stereotype. (And, on that note, they never struck me as the type of band that would get preachy in concert--which thankfully proved to be correct.)
Since Devan and Henry (who owe me a concert after I went to see Ben Folds) had to work and there was a general lack of interest (to put it mildly--let's not forget that I've been accused of liking "wuss rock") from everyone else I asked, I went by myself. Which initially seemed pretty depressing, but turned out that it actually wasn't so bad. I had a seat at the end of a back row so I wasn't absolutely blown away by the speakers (my preferred seating at a concert), and the two guys who were next to me disappeared after the opening act finished. So at a sold-out show, I had the benefit of having two empty seats next to me--great at a smaller venue like the Bijou.
The opening act, Seabird, was pretty good. They reminded me a bit of The Fray, as well as a couple of other bands I just couldn't put my finger on. Not 100% my thing, but I did enjoy them, and I picked up their CD on the way out. I will say they're better live--there's an edge you can't really capture on a studio album.
Jars put on a good show. There was a fair bit of speaker- and platform-climbing (although nothing as dangerously insane as, say, The Slants), and the lead singer tends to be very active and somewhat dramatic during the more upbeat songs (which works given some of the lyrics, and there seems to be a bit of intentional camp mixed in on occasion). Their set list tended toward some of the harder rock songs ("Work," "Dead Man," "Revolution," "Flood," "Heaven," "Weapons"), with acoustic (guitar-wise, at least) versions of slower songs thrown in as well ("Boys (Lesson One)," "There Might Be a Light," "All My Tears"). They definitely run the gamut as far as musical style goes (I counted at least seven guitars between the two lead guitarists, if that tells you anything.)
Having seen other set lists from the tour posted online, there were some unexpected surprises at the Knoxville show. (I've heard they take requests via Twitter.) "Frail" is an older song which, AFAIK, was never actually a single, but is a great live song just for the guitar work. They also ended the show with the aforementioned country/bluegrass-tinged version of "All My Tears," a cover from Good Monsters.
I debated heavily on getting a t-shirt, but unfortunately, the color scheme for TLFBTE is gray and pink (the 80's thing again, I think)--too pink for me to wear comfortably.
Overall, a very good concert, and I plan on going to another next time they come through. I didn't take any pictures, but I did manage to find this video clip taken at the show of the last song they played:
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