As usual we missed the opening band, but it’s all good. We got to the House of Blues right before Say Anything came on. We got hassled at the front door for trying to bring in promotional materials (as usual, there has to be some sort of issue at the House of Blues). Attendance was pretty good; people were packed in tight to see the show, and a lot of them were already drinking heavily.

Up first was Say Anything. They played a mix of songs from their old records (including their first one) as well as a few off of their new self-titled record. Their set included songs such as “Hate Everyone”, “Alive with the Glory of Love”, “Eloise”, “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too”, and “Do Better”. The crowd seemed to get really into it, singing along with Max Bemis and dancing to the music. But personally we didn’t find them to be anything particularly special. We thought that they tried a little too hard, and that they were a little over the top (three guitarists seems unnecessary). They were relatively enjoyable nonetheless, and after they finished up we spent a good while waiting.

When Angels and Airwaves finally came on, they started off with a dramatic sort of entrance, with the only lights being from the various electronics set up on stage. There were a lot of interesting machines, including ones that displayed various messages and another one in the middle that had some kind of synthesizer and a grid of lights that lit up in different patterns. The stage also had an interesting setup, with a cool metallic stage with ramps on it. This had Atom Willard’s drum set in the middle, a large bass drum on the left, and another stand-up set on the right. Behind this was a large array of lights that make all kinds of crazy patterns and colors throughout the show. They went through a ton of songs – a mix of their more popular older songs with new material off of their recently recorded album Love. Their set list included the songs “The Adventure”, “Secret Crowds”, “Epic Holiday”, “Hallucinations”, “Everything’s Magic”, “It Hurts”, “The Flight of Apollo”, “Young London”, “Shove”, and more. Tom Delonge broke up the show every once in a while to talk to the audience about his past experiences, such as one of his first girlfriends, and how he met the other members of Angels of Airwaves. He talked about how he and David Kennedy grew up together, and possibly even broke a few laws together. He talked about how Matt Wachter was an amazing bassist and architect. He also talked about how he and David looked up to this awesome drummer when they were kids who was in a really cool punk rock band, and that he just happened to be Atom Willard. Finally he wrapped it all up by describing himself as handsome and amazing in bed, giving the crowd a few moments to cheer for him on that last one. They played for what seemed like a long time, and almost every song had the crowd singing along and even at one point briefly moshing. They gave off a good energy and their music was really big with lots of crazy effects, keyboards, and synthesizers.

The concert overall was pretty good, but Say Anything’s performance wasn’t anything special. We were impressed with Angels and Airwaves, but we do feel that it wasn’t their best performance. As a result we left the House of Blues feeling good, but also feeling like something was missing. We definitely enjoyed the night, but that missing piece seemed to be just out of reach for us. At any rate, we were glad we didn’t miss it for any of the multitude of distractions that plagued us, including the Red Sox game going on at the same time that we were offered tickets to for ten bucks.