A great night began with a great road race. As we flew at over 100 miles per hour ( I swear it felt like 40) to get to New Haven,CT’s Toad Place for the our local stop of the Pac Sun Tour.
After our interview with Brandon Wronski from Eye Alaska(who may just be the nicest man on earth) and grabbing dinner, we walked into Toads and took our photo/all access passes. The first band, Self Made Soul, wasn’t great, wasn’t even good, yet had somehow won the Battle of the Bands contest to open the show. The instruments were good, but personally I’m not a fan of girl singers/screamers. Luckily, we missed most of their set. They got off stage and we went upstairs to the press box waiting for Eye Alaska to come on.
Eye Alaska walked on stage, huge grins on their faces and just ready to have fun. Totally a crowd-pleaser, the majority of the audience was swaying along. At first they seemed a bit reserved, but then they got into their groove and graced us all with their unique beats and lyrics. Never once faltering or stumbling on his words, Brandon was Superman. To see an opening act have that much confidence and enthusiasm was something that was contagious. They caused my love of their music to grow stronger.
One word came to mind at the start of InnerPartySystem’s set: RAVE! Lasers, strobe lights, and a smoke machine on stage amped up the night! But a few songs in, something hit me: there was a mosh pit?!?!?! What was that about? And it wasn’t one of those mosh pits where everyone’s just running and hitting each other. It was violent. Funny to watch from up above, until someone was hurt and had to leave, it just added to the entertaining chaos that IPS was putting out.
P.O.S. came on and I suddenly realized that the crowd, as a whole, could not keep a beat. Despite that, P.O.S. was upbeat and energetic, but I wasn’t much of a hip hop fan. But his good sense of humor totally kept me engaged. Speaking with the crowd so much as to point out the kid in the front row who was texting through the set. Too funny, but keeping with the party atmosphere. In the middle of one of his songs, a guy was becoming very violent and the staff physically removed him from the venue. Once again hilarious to watch from a bird’s eye view. As if that wasn’t enough, another guy was removed because P.O.S. called him out for hurting somebody. That was followed by a rap that ended with “Because it really sucks when you pay $20 for a show and then get kicked out cuz you were too drunk.” Just because I don’t like hip hop doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to the words. His poetry is some that I found incredibly inspirational. P.O.S. changed my opinion of hip hop completely.
Saosin was up next, and the small crowd repeated “SA-O-SIN!” over and over. One of the roadies was wearing a shirt that said “Hate Me”, which I excitedly pointed out as reference to Blue October. Saosin came on and the crowd immediately started moshing. The entire crowd turned into one giant mosh pit. Saosin wasn’t as energetic as the audience, but they were very good. Sounding exactly like they did on the album, it felt like I was in my room listening to them. The only difference was the lights and the crowd, who was soaking it all up like a sponge. Crystal clear vocals and precision instruments, Saosin didn’t fail to entertain everyone.
Seeing a show from a totally different view has, I think, caused me to never be able to see Toads the same way again. What an incredible night it was.
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