Chickens Concert Series #12: Thrice

I love Thrice and I've never been to the Odeon before so it was a pretty sweet concert. We sat on the second floor so we had a great view. I missed the first opener, Attack In Black, so I won't say anything about them. Say Anything was emo but they were easy enough to tune out so that wasn't too bad. Some people were disheartened to see that the lead singer was wearing a Metallica T-shirt. Certain individuals seemed to feel that the underlying themes for which Metallica stands were not adequately represented by Say Anything's musical genre of choice or their specific attempts at self-expression within said genre. However, I'm not one to fly off the handle about little details. Oh...wait...yes I am...meh, whatever, at least no one was giving them the metal horns. Also, they had some neat T-Shirts.

Anyway, Thrice was the thing so we'll focus on that. Thrice is a punk (some have described it as punk-metal fusion which I can see because they have some pretty hard driving stuff, but they've also been described as experimental punk which I can also see especially with their newest album) band featuring Dustin Kensrue (vocals/guitar - also solo artist),Teppei Teranishi (guitar/keyboards/vocals), Eddie Breckenridge (bass/keyboard/vocals) and Riley Breckenridge (drums). They formed in 1998 while they were still in high school. I like them because each of their albums is different (in a good way) and they don't fall into the punk stereotype of just playing fast and loud (metal bands have that stereotype too except they are louder and angrier). Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just doesn't put you in the front of the pack musically. Anyway, to top it off Dustin Kensrue excels as a lyricist. While I like Thrice's stuff better than Dustin's solo stuff I thought I would throw that out there for some of my more loyal readers you think gold bricks come out whenever he sits down.

Interesting sidebar: Thrice is into charity work and often gives significant portions of concert proceeds to charity.

Anywho their new album, "The Alchemy Index" shows why they have been occasionally described as "experimental rock". It is a 2 disk themed set, one called "Fire" and one called "water". They are taking their music to strange new places with this one, especially the "Water" disk. At first I was scared and angry but, after listening to it, I've grown to like it and appreciate that they are exploring their personal space as musicians. I just hope they don't go too far. Remember, a single plum floating in perfume served in a man's hat is not a legitimate beverage selection in real life.The second themed 2-disk set in this series will come out later this year. This is typical of how prolific they are as they've turned out an album for every year since '99. Though after they made Artist in the Ambulance they skipped 2004 and put out 2 albums in 2005, "If We Could Only See Us Now" and "Vheissu" (FYI . Vheissu, comes from the debut 1963 Thomas Pynchon novel "V." Dustin Kensrue read it, introduced the others to it and they eventually decided to make it the theme of the album).

The downer of the concert was that D couldn't be there to share it with us (she was off edumacatin' some country rubes). Here is a video that some people may or may not have taken with their camera for you while we were there.