The Everlasting Sound Tour at Stubb's

Monday night I was at Stubb's with my friend Facundo (drummer for The Banner Year) for The Everlasting Sound Tour. We hadn't hung out in a while and we both wanted to go support The Material. The Banner Year played with them at their first show in Austin over at The Red Eyed Fly back in July. Being that it was a Monday night, I didn't think there was going to be a large turnout.

We got to Stubb's early enough to hang out, get a drink, and catch up with The Material. I got the scoop on the other bands on the tour from Colleen (lead singer for The Material) as I was unfamiliar with them. I figured she would know since she was on the road with them and played shows together for the past couple of months. She had nothing but good things to say, which I expected because she is probably friends with them all by now.

She told me that they had to get a local band to fill in as Run Doris Run wasn't in Austin for some reason. They were on the tour myspace, flyers, etc. So, local Dub Raggae Ska band, Subrosa Union, was the fourth band on the bill. They are completely different from the other pop/power pop band on the tour, but they won many members of the crowd over none the less.

The first band to go on was And Then There Was You from Miami, Florida. There is no doubt in my mind that they were heavily influenced by Fall Out Boy, as many new young bands are. They had the shag hair to th side with bangs, skinny jeans, Vans slip ons, the whole works. Now I cringe when I see bands that look this way most of the time. I strongly dislike that kind of super pop punk or power pop, whatever its called. It's the kind of music that Aleternative Press covers and you see on Warped Tour now. However, these dudes weren't that bad.

A couple of things I can't say about And Then There Was You is that they lack energy or that they are stuck on themselves. They even did a Helmet cover, which was both cool and unexpected. I am not going as far as to say I would buy their CD, but their live show was good. They lead singer(Steven) had a good voice, not emo or girly at all. They also had a really good drummer, noticeably good. Being that it was a small show, everyone got to talk to all the bands and they were cool guys. I got an interesting lesson in the Miami scene from their bassist, Eddie.

Following them was my favorite band on The Everlasting Sound Tour, The Material. Having seen them at my mom's house two days earlier (true story), they knew I was coming. Their lead singer Colleen was a little sick with sore throat as I saw her drinking hot tea all night before they went on. The Material still sounded good despite her sore throat and performed all their songs on their current self titled EP. This time around there were more people in attendance than there was at their show I caught in July. Several young ladies up front knew the words and were singing along. I think they all have girl crushes on Colleen.

Their set was great as always but short. That wasn't as big of a deal to me as them not performing their One Republic cover of Apologize. I can totally understand why they don't, as they probably don't want to be known as a "cover band". The thing is though, it is what got them many new fans from their performance on MTV2. It is on their myspace, so click on the link I set up to their myspace to check it out. I would love to hear The Material do it live one day. Other than that, I can't say anything bad about this band. I think they will have a breakout 2009.

After The Material was done, Blameshift (another band new to me) went on. All I knew of Blameshift was what Colleen (The Material) told me earlier, that they had a guy and girl lead singer. They also had that "power pop/pop punk" look, but they looked around my age (late 20s) so I was less skeptical about them. I know, that's very age-ist of me.

After checking their set out, I bought a Blameshift CD. Ok so I bought it before they went on as I was talked into it by lead singer, Jenny Mann. I also used that as an opportunity to take this picture. Blameshift was good live. I liked them. The whole tag team lead singer thing works for them and thier show is also very high energy. There were no annoying screams or nasaly voices. The Sirens Are Set was the song that stood out to me the most. Their set seemed to go pretty fast as all their songs are pretty uptempo. Anyone who likes this genre will love Blameshift. Even if you don't usually listen to this style, check them out anyway as they are worthy of your ear time. Don't be like me and let their look detur you from listening.


All in all, this was a good showcase of good up and coming bands. I once again ventured out of my usual realm of hip hop and hard rock. I also thing that had this tour come through Austin on a weekend, there would have been a better turnout. There was maybe 35 people at Stubb's that were not band members or crew. There was also members from local bands She Craves and one guy from The Riddlin Kids in the house. They were all there to see The Material, as was I originally. I leave you with a clip of the show, this one from And Then There Was You.