Brand New with Thrice and mewithoutyou at Tsongas Arena, Lowell, 12/9

I go to way too many shows. (Insert "Shoes" video parody here. - I think you have too many shows. -Shut up!) The latest, and the last for the time being, was Brand New with Thrice and mewithoutyou at Tsongas Arena in Lowell, which is about an hour north of Boston. I'd had these tickets since July, and Brand New is one of my favorite bands, so I was really excited. And it was awesome, especially since I love their most recent album, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, so incredibly much. This review is going to be a lazy review, which is not proportional to the awesome that was the concert.

Guy and I drove up in a Zipcar and stopped at Friendly's, which is becoming a tradition of ours. It's all about the Honey BBQ Chicken Supermelt. The Tsongas arena was big, and we got there right as they opened the doors thanks to a convenient "detour" (by which I of course don't mean getting lost, certainly not), so we didn't have to wait in the cold.

The show began with mewithoutyou, and I enjoyed their set, but none of the music especially stuck with me. I found their stage presence to be more memorable than the songs themselves. The crowd, which consisted almost exclusively of the more understated subspecies of young emo kids, did not quite know what to make of the bearded, balding lead singer pulling at turns maracas, a trumpet, an accordion, and what I call a "cymbal-stick" out of nowhere to accompany their quirky, classic-rock-inspired indie-core. If the Decemberists liked to scream a lot, it might sound something like this.

After mewithoutyou wrapped up, Thrice burst onto the stage with "The Artist In The Ambulance," their most upbeat, catchy song. It sounded great and also ignited the mosh pit, which we (and everyone around us) really tried to avoid. We managed to get pushed into a relatively movement-free place with a good view, so all was well. Thrice played a number of songs from their new album, The Alchemy Index, a concept album dived between "fire" and "water," themes that pervade both the music and lyrics. "Fire" included some heavy songs like "Firebreather" and the epic singalong "Burn the Fleet," while "Water" featured gorgeous, swirling songs like "The Whaler" and "Drowning in a Digital Sea." I started listening to Thrice relatively recently, so I haven't memorized their whole catalogue and some of the setlist blurred together in my mind. They also played a solid and diverse collection of older songs, which I'm pretty sure included "Silhoutte" and "Stare at the Sun," and "Deadbolt." They finished with the brutal "The Earth Will Shake" from 1995's Vheissu. It was a very hard-rocking set interspersed with some quieter, melancholy tunes. The use of lighting was not the most original -- red and flashing for hard songs and blue and shifting for the soft -- but Thrice occupied that stage with such a strong presence that one would not have guessed that they were openers. Most importantly, Dustin Kensrue's voice was clear and strong above the crowd, and perfectly pitched even in his screams. It was a set that could have headlined its own tour.

Brand New took over half an hour to come out, which was really eating on everyone's nerves. When they did come out, though, all was forgiven. They opened with a jamming version of "Welcome To Bangkok" and launched straight into "Millstone." Both these songs were from The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, which I think is an absolutely brilliant piece of work, but is significantly slower and darker than their previous, more generic records. This show was unquestionably in the mode of that album, with relatively low lighting, few smiles and no interjected words between songs, and a setlist that included nearly every song from Devil and God along with a clustered selection of older tracks. I noticed right away during "Millstone" that it was hard to hear the band and Jesse above the singing of the crowd, and compared to Thrice, their sound seemed weak even in their loud moments. This continued through "The Archers' Bows Are Broken," which I had been really excited to hear, but was disappointed in live. I was concerned that the rest of the show would be dragged down by the acoustics, but fortunately it only got better and better as the night went on.

"Jesus Christ," the hit of the album, and one of my favorite songs, period, of the past two years, really changed the pace. Unfortunately, the crowd really wanted to sing to this one too, but it was so beautiful, and the music was soft enough to hear Jesse's plaintive voice above the masses. I really connected with him and with the rest of the audience at the crescendoed climax of the song. The melancholia continued with "Me Vs. Maradona Vs. Elvis," which was absolutely gorgeous. They then treated the fans to the first track from their first album, "The Shower Scene," which contrasted sharply with the richer harmonies and deeper themes of the more recent songs, but got everyone up on their feet. Everyone seemed pleasantly surprised to hear "Tautau," the often ignored opening track from Deja Entendu, which was followed by another track off that album, "Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't." This song has always been a favorite of mine (I'm a sucker for the soft-loud surprise shift, which Brand New has just been loving lately), and it was perfect, full of tension at the beginning until it finally broke into the chorus. Jesse found a handy and powerful way to sing above the crowd by singing a cool harmony rather than the melody -- and not the same one that guitarist Vincent Accardi was singing -- and it was haunting and made the whole experience feel more personal and real.

After the string of songs from older albums, Brand New returned to Devil and God and stayed there for the rest of the night. "Luca" came next, another quiet falsetto-driven song that unexpectedly roars into agonized wailing midway through. On thing I love about Brand New is how truly emotional their music is, and this song was a great example of how Jesse's anguish really came through on stage. Next came "Handcuffs," which I never really got into on the album, but was beautiful live.

It was in the last five songs, though, that Brand New really, really shone. Part of it was that, in addition to harmonizing, Jesse had incorporated just plain melodic screaming into his vocal improvisation. I mean, of course, screaming that wasn't already in the song as recorded. It was as if the emotion was generated throughout the course of the night, and instead of switching moods, the passion just built up. "Not The Sun" just plain rocks, and the anthemic chorus really felt like a unified moment between the whole of the crowd and the men on the half-lit stage. The four-part "Limousine," a fan favorite, was perfectly executed and culminated in another audience bonding moment with its rising repeating chorus. I realized that if Brand New know how to do anything, it's how to end a song. "Sowing Season," which I had been awaiting, was powerful, veering between quiet, sadly hopeful verses that quote Rudyard Kipling, and desperate, reeling distorted guitar bursts to the single word "Yeah." The soft-loud pattern that never seems to get old continued with the hauntingly harmonized "You Won't Know," whose rocking midsection sent shivers up my spine. The last real song they played was the screamer "Degausser," which seemed designed for shameless crowd singing as the recorded version contains a kids' chorus in the background. It worked wonderfully.

They came back on for an encore, but anyone in the audience who was hoping to get some more singing in would have been disappointed. It was a long jam built around the instrumental "Untitled." The encore really highlighted how different this show was from the type they have put on for previous tours. They passed up the perennial signature "Seventy Times Seven" and their radio hit "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows," as well as old fan favorites like "Jude Law and A Semester Abroad." Fortunately, the darker, subtler Devil and God is my favorite Brand New album, and although I would have loved an encore of "Seventy Times Seven," those last five songs were so full of raw power that I just got the feeling the band didn't want to be tied down to their old style anymore. I love a band who can really mature and move on from high school romance without selling out or losing their emotive edge. What the concert really made me do was wonder what kind of album Brand New were going to come up with next, and that, of course, is the best way to do a tour.