Robyn Writes

Motion City Soundtrack – O2 Academy Birmingham 2, 23/9/12

Before The Big Bang Theory made nerds cool, there was Motion City Soundtrack. MCS have always been a little bit quirky, very clever and a ridiculous amount of fun. Fifth album Go made a slight deviation in terms of content – it’s hard to say that Motion City Soundtrack have matured but Go represented a definite shift in their musical style. Did that shift transfer over to their live performance?

We weren’t going to find out straight away. Redditch locals Page 44 (3/5) took to the stage first. If I was sixteen, I’d probably be dating their guitarist and at the front singing every word. As I’m 21 instead, I was stood listening to songs that echoed a dead scene. There’s nothing inherently bad about Page 44 – they seem to be like hard working guys and they’re completely natural on the stage, but the songs just fall flat, lacking the dynamism of the bands they’re trying to emulate. The newer material they were playing (including the song with no name yet) seemed to be slightly more interesting and complex, and it’s those songs, along with a hardworking attitude, that might get them somewhere yet.

Now Now (4/5), in contrast, were really impressive. The Minnesota three piece performed soaring indie rock without losing the audience’s devotion at all. Jess and Cacie’s vocals are sublime and came through wonderfully clear thanks to the excellent sound production that held steady throughout the evening. Although you could easily class them as a band that would likely have a track or two on the OC soundtrack, there’s nothing cliche about their act, or their tracks, at all. The electronic element of their sound works well live and incorporating some more non-traditional instruments (like the xylophone. Bitches love xylophones) kept their performance interesting and involving, which is sometimes pretty tricky in that genre. I’m definitely going to be checking out new album Threads.

Motion City Soundtrack (5/5) just can’t be faulted live in any way, shape or form. They get as crazy as they can for such a small stage and yet, every song just sounds perfect. Although the setlist was mostly formed with tracks from Go, Justin said, “we will proceed to play songs from that album! And four other albums” and the band brought forth classics from all five as the night went on. The tracks from Go hold up well live and enter a whole new level of excitement, despite appearing more sedate than their previous material on record. The entire band are completely charming, but Jesse really steals the show at times – nobody plays the Moog in quite the same way. Justin’s story about seeing Dementors in the Holloway Circus subway was also pretty cute, and it’s this kind of stage banter that really makes a difference – MCS don’t hurl insults at their crowd, or brag about their stage presence, they’re just genuine guys who love playing live music and that makes all the difference in today’s music scene. It just helps that they’re bloody good at it too. From the opening chords of Better Open The Door to the final chorus of The Future Freaks Me Out, me and about half the room couldn’t help but grin. If you want a completely uplifting live experience, then I implore you – check out Motion City Soundtrack.

Live: Motion City Soundtrack – O2 Academy Birmingham 2, 28/3/10

This show almost never happened for me. As a planned birthday present for my father (because he is rad), I asked him whether he would like to go, seeing as he’d have to drive there. He initially said no, but about a week later, he popped his head around my door in the middle of a busy FF session and said ‘let’s do it’. So, being in the middle of FFXIII, I decided to wait until the morning to book tickets where I found, much to my chagrin, they were all sold out. Bummer. However, my dad is an absolute hero and got us tickets anyway, and I bought him some Jason Statham DVDs for his birthday instead. Everyone’s a winner.

I had a much less arduous journey on my hands this time, but we still ended up late, as is my family’s tradition whenever we attend anything. However, in the case of Jenny Owen Youngs, this wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Indie rock with a touch of country and the most irritating vocals I’ve heard in a long time. Even more irritating than the guy from Kyoto Drive the day before. The rest of the music wasn’t too bad – a little cliché, but on the whole, it sounded pretty okay. Just… bleh, those vocals! Something was dying up there. She had bitchin’ hair though. Do want.

With that out of the way, next band up, Free Energy were pretty sweet. Now, they had the most awful lyrics I’ve heard in possibly forever (“bang bang, pop pop”? What the, what the fuck?) but on the whole, they were good! An odd choice to support a band like Motion City Soundtrack due to their general hippie rock feel – doubly defined by the hair on show – but they had some seriously feel good songs. There’s too much negativity in rock music these days and we need bands like Free Energy to shake it up a bit. Lots of finger tapping, cowbell and an extremely skinny singer strutting across the stage. Possibly a throwback to the 80s, but let’s face it… they were the best decade.

I was pretty excited for Motion City Soundtrack to be coming out. Having listened to My Dinosaur Life a couple of times before the show, I knew that in the studio, they hadn’t changed at all. In fact, it was even an improvement on Even If It Kills Me, despite that being a brilliant album. It turns out that I was entirely right to be excited as Motion City Soundtrack are just great performers. My one lament is that Jesse didn’t have his bendy keyboard stand, but on a stage that small, I can see how that might not have worked so well. Asides from that notion, they were so good. They played one of the best sets I’ve seen any band play, with a shit ton of stuff from I Am The Movie (my favourite), including “The Red Dress”, which I never imagined would happen, and the rest of the songs came from across the board – in fact, here’s the setlist. The new material sounds great live, except the keyboard is a little lacking live, but I think that’s a problem to do with levels and seems to be consistent whenever anybody with a synth is playing anywhere. Justin still has crazy hair and is the perfect gentleman, and I wish to steal his Keyboard Cat shirt. One thing I really appreciate about Motion City Soundtrack is that they actually look like they want to be there – there were smiles all around the band and the crowd! It’d been four years since I’d seen Motion City Soundtrack, all the way back when Give It A Name was still being done in Birmingham, and in fact, four years since the band had toured over here. At the end of the night, Justin told us “it’s been far too long and I promise it’ll never be this long again”. Let’s hope not, because the UK needs Motion City Soundtrack.