Show Recap: Anberlin @ Ogden

I've decided after writing a terrible review of the Anberlin show (terrible referring to my writing, not Anberlin) that this blog is going to be more of a place to just type out my thoughts, rather than try to be a professional music writer or whatever. I'm just not a good writer, but i have a lot of thoughts pertaining to music.

Anyway...Kassie, Travis and I went down to Denver on Tuesday night and caught the Anberlin show at the Ogden Theater. First i'd like to say that i really like the Ogden, i always have, its a small venue so the shows are really intimate. The sounds is usually pretty good, very loud and i like that a lot. For this show however the vocals were not mixed very well at all, you couldn't hear Stephen's (from Anberlin) vocals really at all, especially when he was singing low.

Anberlin always brings it, they are so solid live. Once again they played a set that was dominated by their more energetic songs, songs like Dismantle.Repair, Godspeed, Never Take Friendship Personal. They write and record great slower songs, but rarely play many of them live besides Unwinding Cable Car for which they switched to acoustic guitars for.

They also neglected to play any song off of Blueprints for the Black Market, their first album. I don't count Feel Good Drag because they re-released that track on their latest album New Surrender and its their single right now. Usually they play Readyfuels but not this time.

Everyone has the sense that Stephen basically makes this band, and that's true. While the band is very solid, Stephen is just amazing live. He sings so well, very strong at times and then very soft but powerful. He doesn't strain to hit the high notes, night after night. He seemed a little distracted by something this night which took away from his usually over-the-top energy, but even then he owned the show.

Another great part of Anberlin's live show is that they don't waste much time between songs. Stephen rarely spends time explaining the songs or lyrics (which might be nice once in awhile, but he already explains a lot on his blog) and even though there appeared to be some technical difficulties, Anberlin continued to keep the flow going. the "encore" break was short, probably just to set up the track for the closer, *fin, which was amazing.

The setlist included songs mainly from Cities, 2.5 from the new album New Surrender and the rest from Never Take Friendship Personal. Here's the set from what i remember:

Adelaide
Feel Good Drag
Unwinding Cable Car
Resilience
A Day Late
Godspeed
Dismantle Repair
Hello Alone
Paperthin Hymn
Breaking
Disappear
-encore-
*fin

As for the other bands, Streetlight Manifesto was terrible. Scary Kids Scaring Kids was basically scary and lacked any real highlights. their sound was way too loud and the keyboardist, who never really played the keys, was dancing all over the stage like a tool. They lacked any creative interesting sound, which was enough for Kassie to take a nap during their set, no seriously, she fell asleep numerous times.
This was my third time seeing these guys live, it might not have been the best show i've seen, but still one of the best band to see live, no question.