Panic at the Disco, Dashboard Play Halloween Show
Story by Connect2Mason Director Grace Kendall. Photos by Courtney Erland.
A crush of scenesters clad in neon elbow for position by the barricade. Two girls dressed as s’mores swoon on the floor, singing along with “Our Time Now” by the Plain White T’s and pledging their devotion to the band with their unblinking eyes and hands clasped over their hearts. Candy is thrown to the audience. Product placement is so prominent audience members will go home reciting not song lyrics but video game commercials. It can mean only one thing: the Rock Band Live Tour has come to the Patriot Center for Halloween.
Las Vegas-based pop-rockers The Cab kicked off the night with style. Lead guitarist Ian Crawford was one of the most talented performers to take the stage all night, fingers flying along the neck of the guitar and stealing impressive solos from the frets.
The band played energetic numbers like “I’ll Run,” “Bounce” and “Risky Business.” Though their vocals were occasionally weak, the instruments were strong and The Cab’s enthusiasm was infectious, getting the crowd more excited than most opening bands can manage.
The Plain White T’s cashed in on this energy, performing a balanced mix of older pop songs like “Take Me Away” and newer material like the endearing “One Two Three Four.”
The Chicago pop-rockers know how to close a set, saving their hits for last. “Hey There Delilah,” which everyone claims to be sick of but secretly still adores, was performed well and aided by a feminine backing chorus provided by devoted crowd members.
They followed up the romantic number with the killer pop-punk song “Hate (I Really Don’t Like You),” and the energy they carried through their final number created such a good vibe that the rest of their set was left in the dust.
Between two of the bands’ sets, teams of audience members were brought onstage to play Rock Band. Some of the groups got into it and were fun to watch, like the first group of George Mason University students who flaunted behind-the-neck guitar skills and unique vocals while tearing up “The Kids In America.” Others were painful, like the final group who flailed on a Paramore track despite — or perhaps because of — the male drummer being topless.
Dashboard Confessional was next up. The alt-rockers played a good set, but they seemed slightly out of place in a lineup of college-aged pop-rockers. Frontman Chris Carrabba’s vocals were oddly feminine at times, but their devoted fans didn’t mind and sang along with all their might to hits like “Hands Down” and “Don’t Wait.” One of the biggest hits of their performance was “These Bones,” a song Carrabba said he wrote after reading the novel Twilight.
A large video screen was displayed behind the bands, and Dashboard Confessional was the first to take advantage of it. For songs like “Thick as Thieves,” card games and exploding fireworks were a nice backdrop to the music, effectively punctuating some of the songs’ emotional themes.
Towards the end of their performance, Dashboard Confessional brought out a few members of The Cab to help play a high-spirited cover of Pink’s “So What,” which brought the energy in the room up enough to accommodate their final song, “Stolen.”
But as high as the energy level was at the end of Dashboard Confessional’s set, it skyrocketed as soon as Panic at the Disco took the stage in Halloween costumes, grinning and opening with their holiday song “It's Almost Halloween.”
The band played a mix of material from their first and second albums. Though the recorded sound of each is vastly different, subtle changes made to the older material helped it fit more comfortably in the candy-coated carnival sound the band has been pursuing.
“But It’s Better If You Do” morphed into “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by the Beatles and then moved seamlessly into an audience-led version of smash hit “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.”
Their set progressed nicely, with highlights including lead singer Brendon Urie playing a secondary drum kit on “That Green Gentleman” and a strong performance of “When The Day Met the Night.” The band closed the night with a dorky dance demonstration and a well done cover of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.”
As a whole, it was a solid show. Most of the sets ended abruptly and the instruments were overly loud all night long, but the bands gave strong performances and the crowd seemed pleased. At the end of the night, people left the venue clutching Rock Band Live T-shirts and copies of Panic at the Disco’s Halloween single, chatting about which band members they had eye-sex with during the show and which songs were their favorites. It may not have been the best Halloween party on the planet as the MC proclaimed between sets, but those who attended definitely had a good time.
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