Jimmy Eat World @ McKay Events Center, Orem (4/14/08)

Yeah, so it turns out one of us should probably invest in a decent camera since we've gone to a couple shows in a row and came out with no pictures, sorry!

Also, this show review comes pre-packaged with a crazy story, enjoy!: Ok, so to get from my town to the area where we see most of our concerts, one must drive over some mountains (takes about 30 minutes) then drive an additional hour and 20 minutes over fairly flat terrain. Me and a friend hopped into my rickety old car and began our journey. We had just made it over the mountains when my car started making what I can only describe as a "death rattle." We pulled over and had a look, and the fly wheel (which is apparently what they call the top wheel that runs your belts) looked like it was trying to escape. Since neither of us wanted a fly wheel to the forehead, and in order not to risk getting stuck even farther away from home, we made the distress call to our parents. Lame, I know. Turns out we aren't hardcore, and also can't fix cars. Longish story short, after having our manhood's revoked, we were back on our way to the concert an hour or so later in my friend's car.

The very unfortunate part of this story (besides the untold amount of money my car is going to cost to fix) is that this 1+ hour delay caused us to miss Dear and the Headlights entire set! Sad times were had by us. Luckily (some might say, I wouldn't) we were able to see almost all of Paramore's set.

In case you didn't catch that, I'm not really a Paramore fan. I think they may be just a bit too punk for me. I will say that their lead vocalist, Hayley Williams, brought a lot of energy and had pretty good stage presence. The rest of the band just seemed to be...there, for the most part. They played their parts, did their choreographed rock-out moves, but really didn't bring much else.

Jimmy Eat World came out with energy, feeling, and passion, and played a pretty awesome set. They opened with Big Casino, closed the encore with The Middle, and played a very good mix of songs in between. I expected to get a heavy dose of their newest album, Chase This Light, but was delightfully surprised to hear many of their older gems. They played 3 from Clarity (Crush, Blister, Your New Aesthetic), a surprising 1 from Static Prevails (Thinking That's All), and about 5 each from Chase This Light (Big Casino, Always Be, Dizzy, Here It Goes, Let It Happen), Bleed American (Bleed American, Sweetness, A Praise Chorus, The Middle, Hear You Me), and Futures (Kill, Futures, Just Tonight..., Work, Pain). Highlights for me were Hear You Me, the first song played in the encore, which sounded really beautiful and heartfelt, and Crush, one of my favorite Jimmy songs. Take a listen to the cd versions:

[mp3] Jimmy Eat World - Crush
[mp3] Jimmy Eat World - Hear You Me

Don't expect this every time, but I've just decided to do a full review on this one! "What the hell does that mean?" you ask? Well, that means I shall even give my critique of the sound and lighting (crazy, I know). Unfortunately, I gotta give the soundboard dude a thumbs down. It seemed like the strategy was: the best way to balance the instruments is to turn them all up to 11. This made for a very loud Jimmy set, but I thought it hurt Paramore the most: almost all their songs sounded the same. And no, that's not a veiled shot at Paramore and/or punk, I've heard their stuff before and know that not all their songs sound the same. I know it's gotta be hard to get the sound right in an arena/stadium, but I expected better.

The lighting guy (not to be confused with the lightning guy) did a pretty great job. I almost want to say that the fact that I noticed the lighting at all must mean that the guy is doing something right, but it was definitely more than that. In some songs (notably Bleed American) the lights switched with the chord changes, which was very pleasing to the eye. Hear You Me featured heavenly lighting and spotlights, which worked incredibly well. It seemed like he went a little crazy with strobe lights during a couple songs, but all in all it was a pretty solid effort. Oh, and for those of you who like to play Jimmy Eat World trivia, lead singer Jim Adkins remarked during the show that the lighting guy used to live in Salt Lake City. That bit of knowledge would probably be somewhat more useful if I could remember his name...

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