Remembering the Encores

Who: Jimmy Eat World with Matt Pond When: September 22, 2013 Where: The Warfield/ San Francisco, CA With: I don't have friends here. Of Note: I am probably too old to be mosh pit adjacent Jimmy Eat World's 'Bleed American' is the rare album that has the ability to transport me to two very specific, very different places in time. The year is 2001 and I'm a sophomore in college. I'm sitting at my desk in Lehman, in front of my Compaq desktop trying to get work done, probably on my hellishly miserable Advanced Macroeconomic Theory class after carefully reading everyone's AIM Away Messages, while trying desperately to stay focused and not flail around to 'The Middle'. Nine times out of ten, I fail at sitting still, schoolwork abandoned in favor of jumping around like a crazy person. This album was my jam; we spent a lot of quality time together. Fast forward ten years, or so. Barb and I were having one of our epic happy hours and had made...

Who: Matt Nathanson with Lights When: August 23, 2012 Where: Thursday at the Harbor/ Buffalo, NY With: Katie, Josette, Katie, Kyle, Others Of Note: We rocked Matt Nathanson so hard his pants ripped Matt Nathanson is part of the genre of music I like to call "cute boys with guitars". I was really excited when he was announced as the last act of Buffalo's free concert series, Thursday at the Harbor. I gathered up a posse and off we went. (Oh man, I almost forgot that I have the best "Jen [& co.] is a dumbass" story about getting to the show. Because parking at the Harbor can be tricky, I was going to meet Katie at her office (the same building as the old KegWorks office, awwww) and we were going to take the "train" down. When it pulled up, we couldn't get the door to open. Instead of walking to one of the other doors, we stood and looked at it, with perplexed expressions until it pulled away. While we stood on the platform. So we...