Well, I'm back from last night's show at the TLA. We got there just in time for Greg's set to start (he was the opening act, meaning he only had a 30 minute set). I got the entire set on audio, although the sound quality isn't as great as I would have liked (it turns out that it was a little too loud, so the acoustic songs sound pretty good but the non-acoustic ones aren't so good). I also have everything except for the first one and a half songs on video, which may have actually came out better audio wise. I will figure out which version has a better quality when I transfer it to the computer later today. The actual video quality won't be very good (it was just me holding my digital camera), but I'll post it for anyone who wants to see it.
Here is the set list from the show:
Don't Be Afraid to Run
Cold As The Clay
California Cotton Fields (done by Greg on acoustic guitar as opposed to the piano on the studio version)
(I think there is another song here, probably Little Sadie, but I'm not sure)
Rebel's Goodbye
Suffer
Highway of Denial
One More Hill (Swith to Piano here I think)
Watchmaker's Dial
Some of these details may not be exactly right, my memory isn't perfect. I'll update this later today when I transfer things to my comptuer and listen again. And of course, you'll get to hear all about it on the upcoming Podcast episode (plus plenty of "bonus material" of my friends and I talking on the drive to and from the show). That episode will likely be up this weekend, although it could take a little longer because there is a lot of editting to do.
As for the other bands at the show, The New Amsterdams weren't very good. For those who have never heard of the band, they're the acoustic offshoot of The Get Up Kids, who, IMO, were a better band. The New Amsterdams played one or two decent songs, but overall they were pretty "samey" and nothing really stood out. It would have been nice for them to be the opening act so that Graffin could have had 15 more minutes to play some more acoustic Bad Religion numbers (he only did Suffer, despite saying "here are a few songs from my other band", implying that he was at least going to do more than one).
The Weakerthans, though, had a very awesome set. This is my second time seeing the band, and I've also heard a live recording of them, so it was nice to hear them throw in three new songs from their upcoming album. I'm not real sure what I think about these new songs, they're slightly different in subject matter than Samson's earlier songs in that they seem a little more overtly political (much like One Great City). What was really cool about the set was that when Samson came back for the encore he took a request to play "Gifts" for the 15 people in the venue who recognized it. The song appeared on Propagandhi's "Less Talk, More Rock" album but not on subsequent Weakerthan's albums like "Anchorless" did.
Overall it was a pretty good night, I just wish that Graffin played longer or at the very least there was a better second band than The New Amsterdams.
