Eureka! Everything Under the Sun!

A few days ago, I had a bit of a concert splurge and just decided to go see Jukebox the Ghost on Tuesday, followed by Rooney on Wednesday. Hence my plugging of the bands' new albums in the title.

I met with my friend Juliana at the 92Y Tribeca for Jukebox. Funny story: I thought for 1.5 months that the show was at the 92nd STREET Y, so I kept checking their calendar but never saw the Jukebox concert listed. It was only the day before that I re-googled 92Y only to find there was a 92Y Tribeca, and I saw the concert listed there. Well, the next morning (day of), I got back on and ordered a ticket. That was silly.

The ticket!

Juliana's birthday gift to me. Yes, no more fanning myself with Shakespeare!

We waited on line for a little while, and made some new friends (you know, the regular people, like the guy who writes backwards and the guy from Connecticut who has his own band and knows like, half the people that went to your high school). I was pretty shocked a lot of the crowd was guys! That's a good sign when both genders like a band!

It's a ghost! <----free awesome yellow things

Then Jukebox came out!

They were FACE MELTING! AWESOME TASTIC WITH A SIDE OF SWEAT AND WINE (um, Ben was sipping wine the whole time cause he's that cool). At one point, I stopped and realized how much I respected them as musicians and people. Their music just feels so good! Kinda like that feeling after running; like you did something good for yourself.

Most noted parts of this concert:
-They played the whole new album, Everything Under the Sun, in its entirety! It's coming out September 7th
-Ben telling us a story of how he went to the 92nd street Y only to be told it was the one in Tribeca (ha! It's not just me!)
-Tommy's "So you think you can acapella?"
- After the concert:
FINALLY TALKING TO TOMMY (by the way, I didn't get super blurtastic Tommy pictures this time!) I just had to say hi since I missed it the last two times.
Also telling Shervin, the tour manager, that he's the nicest person ever! Seriously, he's always smiling and just being nice to everyone. Where does this guy come from, Denmark? Although I highly doubt they would get a European import to manage their tours.

After having a blasty at Jukebox and exchanging facebook info with aforementioned person from Connecticut, Juliana and I headed out.

The next day, I braved myself for some more rocking good times.

I met my friends Melissa and Crysbel at the Museum of Natural History.

I REALLY wanted an ironic picture. Oh my god, I love ironic pictures.

There was already a small line forming when we got there, but luckily only 3 minutes after us, 20 more people came and we didn't get stuck behind them.

My amiga is reading Japanese while I cam whore my outfit by myself. Don't I look happy? 8D

After a while, we went in and waited for another hour or so. Sans two girls who tried hitting on the guys next to us (and pushing my friend on numerous occasions) the crowd was pretty friendly.

The first band was Black Gold.

They were quite good. The drummer and the singer/keyboardist was really into it, and on numerous occasions the singer clapped his hands to the music so we would do the same. At one point, he even had us sing words to one of his songs.
I think the only problem was they lack some stage presence. I wished the bassist and guitarist did more/moved around. But I definitely see a lot of potential. And their music is good.

Second band was The Young Veins.

I expected so much and got so little. Their music was pretty good (I could tell they were influenced by the Beatles and California), but as far as performance goes, they barely moved. AT ALL. Only maybe once or twice did the two in the front move in. And I believe smiling some more may have gone a long way.

Well, after another moment of waiting, Rooney came out and I finally felt inclined, neigh, I just couldn't control moving around all over the place.

DO YOU SEE THE BLUR? It's a good sign.
I've seen Rooney once before (I believe I blogged about it but I don't think I took pictures the last time) so I knew what to expect to some extent. But they BLEW MY MIND AWAY. They played a lot of oldies but goodies, along with new songs from Eureka. The playlist was really impeccable. That and Rooney songs are just plain fun. Really California sounding (Side note: I have my itunes on random and California Girls just started playing). Everything is just kind of sunny, bright, and fun. I danced to everything.

Also, I know I'm rambling, but I'm so proud they went independent. After issues with major labels (the labels wanted a hit song and kept discarding and making them rewrite a lot of stuff), they decided to break off and build their own studio and edit and record everything on their own. I guess when you've been doing it for as long as Rooney, a major label might be more of a curse than a blessing. Anyway, glad they did because we got to hear songs they really wanted to make! Bravo!



As a final note, there's been quite a few great giveaways in the blogging world. I believe many are ending, but check out the Lil Veggie Patch's Giveaway for a $40 CSN Giftcard! It goes on til Tuesday.

Anyway, at the risk of making this an insanely long blog post (well, it already is), I'm signing out! Have a nice leisurely Sunday!