Unwritten Law and Lagwagon

I think this is one of my favorite songs to see them perform live because he just gets so into it. I hadn't seen them play it this way before, but this time around what they did was play the Hit List version of Rest Of My Life where it's a little more bitter than the original version and then after the first chorus he breaks into She Says. I thought it was pretty sweet. And at the shows that I've seen him perform this song when he gets to the chorus where it kind of blows up he throws the guitar behind him. I love the theatrics involved with the shows, it really does make a big difference.

The opening band had decent music, but their presentation just felt all wrong to me. It makes a big difference to have a lead singer and even band members who can really get into the emotion of the music and not just sound good musically, but then deliver as far as it comes to the actual performance and presentation of the song. Unwritten Law does a really good job of this, but my one complaint with them is that they don't maintain energy between songs. They played Lonesome which would be one of my favorite songs to see live, but then they always take like a ten minute break at the bridge and he talks and introduces the band - totally unneccesary. I would much rather they just keep the flow from one song to the next. Other than that, I love the way they sound live and the delivery of the finished product. Great, great stuff.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed Lagwagon. I had just seen them back in October and I've seen them several times before, but I just forgot how much I really enjoyed their music in general. They played several songs off of Blaze and Hoss and those are easily my favorite albums of theirs. More than any band I've seen, I think Lagwagon does the best job of mixing the music they perform live between old and new stuff. My favorite moment(s) of the evening was when Joey (singer) steps off stage to "take a break" and asks one of the guys standing on the side to sing Never Stops. The guy was so revved up for the song and kept talking about how it's the best song in the universe. As he is singing in lieu of Joey, right at the part where it slows down (about 2:30 through the video) and gets back into fast rhythm he does a full body head bang as the rest of the band completely stops playing and they all just stare at him as he looks up at them confused about why everything went silent. If you weren't familiar with the song, then you probably missed the joke. Then at another point they did a similar thing, but rather than stop completely they delayed the note as he lurched forward in anticipation of the music. Since the concert I've listened to that particular song at least a dozen times. I love how concerts can awaken you to certain music or reinvigorate old love that you had. That's exactly what happened for me last Friday night at The Grove.