Believe in all the good things you keep inside

I just got back from a most wonderful concer experience and I have to write about it before I pass out on my bed!

Ahhhhhhhhh…… The Fire Theft. The very name of the band conjures up warm little butterflies of giddy excitement and restless joy builds up within every fiber of my ecstatic being! Okay so maybe perhaps the feeling isn’t quite exactly like that but you get the picture… I’m seriously enamored with the band.

Anyhow like I was saying I just got back from the first concert I have ever seen them play. Now this is an extremely important thing to me because of the fact that The Fire Theft is actually comprised of three members of my favorite all-time band Sunny Day Real Estate, which broke up in the latter part of 2000 if I remember well enough… just shortly after releasing their 4th album and touring the country. I remember finding out that they broke up just mere months into my discovery of the music. Man, it stank. But you knew the band couldn’t die… they had a huge fanbase and even though the band didn’t get along all that well they reformed into The Fire Theft, sans Matt Hoerner…. the lead guitarist and original founder of the group. At any rate they proceeded to deliver a scrinkledeefratlenberger (I don’t know what that word is but it is at least akin to the feeling of intense excitement that I get toward this band) of a show tonight and, well, here is the song-by-song breakdown!!!!

1. Uncle Mountain – woooooo! The concert has begun with an awesome song and I am actually seeing Jeremy Enigk sing waaay better than I thought he would be singing live!

2. Chain – This song isn’t so good as all of the others but it still blew away the audience live. It gets soooo hard at the end and Jeremy was screaming into the mic… very emo. 😉

3. It’s Over – Possibly one of the best songs on the CD, it was equally amazing live but little did I know to be dwarfed significantly by what was to follow.

4. Carry You In My Breath – This song was soooo emo. Justin and Mike were getting glassy-eyed during it and I confess that I was too. It was the first song of the night where I could really read a heartfelt passion just in everything from the lyrics to the way that the band was playing… it was *really* amazing.

5. Hands On You – This song isn’t on the CD but I have a demo version of it so it was quite familiar and catchy at that. It was cool to see Jeremy sing some lyrics I’ve been hard-pressed to figure out “Gotta a new radio now, got it in for the old revelation” something like that.

6. Oceans Apart – This song rocked.

7. Summertime – This song rocked more.

8. Rubber Bands – This song was rocking so hard that I was grinning like a stupid toad. Basically this one is all instrumental except for a 20 second lyric bit at the very end. It was really enjoyable to watch, especially the drummer and the bass guitar, they were going psycho on this one.

9. Houses – A good cool down kind of song to prime us all for the grand finale, Houses is a really nice song to just relax to. “nevermind the world when I’m laying here by the pool, I know they think I’m lazy and believe I need a girl”

10. Waste Time – This song was *very* heartfelt and very awesome. Jeremy changed up a bunch of the lyrics on this one and I wish that I could remember all of it. As it faded out the drums and piano continued to bring us into the last song.

11.Sinatra – More explosive and incredible live than it will ever be to me on the CD, this song lifted me up soooo high. It was at about this interval in the concert that I think I saw Jeremy really worshipping and giving glory to God, at least I’d like to say that since I know that he is a Christian but this song was sooo sincere and incredible and it rocked on and on for a while but I didn’t want it to stop.

Encore: 12. Explain – NO WAY. This song is not a Fire Theft song, it is in fact a song from Enigk’s 1996 Solo project, Return of the Frog Queen, which is an exceptional CD. Mike and I simultaneously decided that this concert was the best ever when we heard the opening to this song.

13. Heaven – “Heaven, are you really waiting outside the door? Never thought I’d hear the words before the roar. Sever, it’s the simple things that are so hard to grasp…. my whole world is falling in love with you… can’t find the road that runs through falling in love with you….”

And with all of that jazz I will now retire!

God bless Jeremy Enigk.

And then there’s Roo…. come home Roo!

Joel