Notes from a Genius

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of seeing 3 great artists, with my sister, at the upstairs venue at the Middle East in Cambridge. My sister has loved the band, The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die for some years now (okay, maybe just like 3-4 years) but we've gone to see them every time they've made an appearance in Boston (the first time being when they opened for Caspian, a band I discovered a couple of years ago). This time around they were headlining a brief winter tour with support from a great Boston band, Animal Flag, and a solo artist named Paige Chaplin, who's slow and steady melodic songs were beautiful. For The World is a Beautiful Place... set they were missing their guitarist and one of the founding members of the band, who seemingly has parted ways with the band, and so there were far less extravagant guitar solos and feedback endings to their songs, but the band blazed on for a blistering set that still left ears ringing...

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Dashboard Confessional for the, I believe, 5th time. They've been kind of in hibernation for a few years, with Chris Carrabba delving into a few other projects here and there (re: check out Twin Forks, and the reunited Further Seems Forever reunion tours, as well as him touring solo for the 10th anniversary of "Swiss Army Romance"). He has been working hard, clearly, and just started recorded some new Dashboard Confessional stuff. I saw them this summer on the pier in Portland. They sounded good, tried out a new song. And for this tour, they are playing a mixed bag of old tunes (my favorite), middle, and newer stuff (including a few covers they've recorded, and new tunes for a potential new album). This was a great start to their tour, having decided to start their winter tour in Boston (I love when bands do that). Hell, he even pulled out a 16-year-old cover of Weezer's b-side song "Jamie" as well as a Julien Baker c...