I saw The Bravery Thursday night at the WBRU Summer Concert Series in Providence. It was my second WBRU Summer Concert Series show. I previously saw Hot Hot Heat and Third Eye Blind in 2003, and I spent the majority of the evening waiting to hear Semi-Charmed Life and wondering if anyone ever told 3EB (as Carson Daly once referred to them on TRL, back in 1987 when the show still mattered) frontman Stephen Jenkins that he looked just like actor Paul Rudd in "Clueless". I was also tempted to find a way to ask Jenkins if his little rap at the end of Never Let You Go was done as a comedic homage to Rudd. Suffice to say, I was entertained two years ago, but the music had little if nothing to do with it.

I went into the show unsure of what to expect. I knew nothing about the band except the album I had owned for a week and their ongoing Schilling/A-Rod-esque feud with The Killers. I was expecting an immature band in punk attire, who pandered to their young audience and went through their set like they were rehearsing a cover of "I Wanna Be Sedated" after a few beers in their parents garage. When the band first took the stage, my expectations were seemingly met. The lead guitarist wore a black dress shirt with a tie. The bass player had a Flock of Seagulls that even they might have looked at in 1985 and said "Eh, that might be a bit much." The keyboard player sported some huge hair and was attired in a brown dress jacket, a scarf, and black rimmed classes; sort of Holden Caulfield meets Napoleon Dynamite. Lead singer Sam Endicott was the last to come on stage, and his pseudo-Danny Zuko wardrobe, tight jeans, leather jacket, and gelled hair, seemed to do it for the teenage girl contingent, which was roughly 75% of the crowd. In fact, as their set went on I realized I was rougly one of 20 people in the crowd singing along who:
A. was not a teenage girl
B. had no visible piercings
C. opted to go with shorts and sandels instead of tight jeans and a black zip-up jacket on the 85 degree day

Anyways, the band kicked things off with Out of Line, and from then on I knew The Bravery were for real. No bullshitting with the audience. No kissing the ass of the city they are playing in. No turning a 4 minute song into a 12 minute instrumental with multiple bridges and extended keyboard solos. Nothing but total focus on the matter at hand. The Bravery did something few bands seem to be found of: All they did was come out and perform the shit out of their songs. At a time when it is chic to claim they are ripping off The Killers in spades, The Bravery blazed their own trail in terms of letting the songs speak for themselves...and the audience definitely responded. The place was jumping from from the opening chords. Myself, I left the concert a bigger fan of The Bravery then I was going on, and that is probably the greatest compliment you can give to a band after seeing them live. For example, An Honest Mistake was at best my fourth or fifth favorite song off the album, but it has taken on a whole new life for me after seeing it performed live. The band exuded a hellacious energy, assaulting the chorus with so much spirit. When I went for a run the next day, I had The Bravery in my disc man, and the song kicked me into another gear. Each song was as originally recorded, only the added energy and sweat were added. By the time The Bravery returned for an encore, I felt like every teenage girl in the audience (See Guideline #3). I was screaming and taking in the whole experience. I was amazed at how a five-piece punk/pop/rock/synth band's 35 minute set could remind why I love music so much. Even 3EB's Paul Rudd could not achieve that.

The only thing that felt borrowed from other bands was Endicott's stage antics. He wore a permanent snarl on his face, a cross between Billy Idol's lip curl and Johnny Rotten's "Hey I am going to be a douchebag every second of my life" look. Often times Endicott would do the Steven Tyler, and stalk across the stage with the entire mic stand. On other occasions he stole a page from opening act Hot Hot Heat and do that spastic move where you walk towards the mic, only to move away from it with your ass sticking straight out. Hard to describe, even harder to pull off after the audience just watched it being done 20 minutes earlier. Axl Rose also pulled out in the video for Welcome to the Jungle. However, despite his copycat moves, it all worked for Endicott. It did not have the feel of Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot "Psycho" remake or Creed's Scott Stapp stealing Eddie Vedder's singing voice. It felt more like a Tarantino film, where he takes a steady cam shot Scorsesse, a split-screen from DePalma, and references back to his own earlier films. In other words, in borrowing alot of from others, Endicott was able to create a stage presence that felt like his own.

I had mentioned that I was going to tackle my fondness for The Bravery reflecting my possible desire to appear trendy, but I am going to save that entry for a time when I can fully incorportate The Killers, High Fidelity, Swingers, Wes Anderson, and other trendy bandwagons I may have subconsciously jumped on.

From the outset, let me lay down some guidelines I hope will eliminate any misconceptions about my blog:

1. Frequency: Most blogs are done on a daily basis. While I envision daily updates, my life history dictates this will not be the case...In fact, I may not even make it through this posting. My life is littered with incompleteness. It is something I desperately want to change. I have started literally hundreds of screenplays, short stories, novels, novellas, limmericks, and even sentences that have gone nowhere after 3 days. In high school, I tried to keep journals of all types: personal journals, writing journals, movie idea journals. Most stemmed from inspiration after seeing a movie or reading a book, or girl frustations. However, after ripping off a few ideas from Tarantino or Dr. Thompson or printing & pasting the lyrics to November Rain, they tend to go untouched for a period of time...like forever. The same goes for jobs. Never have I left a summer job at the end of the summer. My breaking point is usually July. Like with my writing, I begin a job with a flourish and tons of energy, but after 2 weeks, I generally begin to coast. Truth be told: Writing and work definitely cut into doing nothing, and there is nothing I enjoy more than doing nothing, save for complaining about how I am doing nothing. So it is anyones guess as to the update frequency. I just want everyone to know I go into this with every intention to be diligent in my updates.

2. Punctuation: Next to the appeal of Josh Hartnett, commas remain one of the great mysteries of the world to me. At this point I have given up on figuring out where to place them. I tend to just throw them out wherever I think they may look good. And let's face it: If, commas, are, going, to, be, the, major, road, block, between, me, and, a, writing, career, then, it, was, never, meant, to, be. HOWEVER, what I have no patience for are contractions. You will not see any on this page. Even if an entry is entitled "The 50 Greatest Examples of Contractions" you will not find a single one on here.

3. Perception: I have reached the point where I am not really too concerned if something I say sounds slightly effeminine. So if I say someone "looks well built" or "I enjoy decorating for Christmas", please do not read too much into it other than

4. The Jeff Goldblum Rule: Jeff Goldblum is the greatest living actor. Period. End of discussion. In fact, he played the key role in one of the greatest moments of my life. I cannot emphasize how important it is for readers to remember this guideline.

5. Purpose: Last but not least, the reason I am doing this is to have a creative outlet. If people choose to read it, that is only a bonus. I have reached the point in my life where if I quit my job, I need to devote at least some of that energy to something useful. I figure a semi-daily blog is a good way to build up to completing things in the future.

These 5 guidelines seem like a good foundation. I promise future entries will be more entertaining and will not read like a dictator setting forth his laws to his minions.

Next Update: The Bravery live...and how my pop culture choices could reflect a low self-esteem.