SHOW REVIEW: Welcome To Now/Ocean Man/Day Dreamer @ The Dial, January 27 2013

I had spent most of the day lounging around my house being completely unproductive. Lazy Sunday. The NFL Pro Bowl was on but I didn't even watch. Partway through the day I called Zack Heath to come pick my bum ass up and take me to the Taco Shop. I got the #1 combo, a shredded beef taco with a cheese enchilada with rice and beans; it wasn't until after I had paid and sat back down to wait, however, that I realized they had a special going on for a taco, enchilada, tosada, and medium drink...FOR 50 CENTS LESS THAN WHAT I HAD PAID!! How does that make any economical sense at all??? It was too late, hoewever, and I had no other choice but to eat my regret. Shit was delicious.
We got to the Heath house and I started munching down under the impression that me Spencer and Evan were gonna jam but when Evan got there he just wasn't down. The Coltranes had opened up for Agent Orange at The Vault the night prior where Zack got jumped and the entire night was exhausting. I was a bit disappointed that we werent gonna jam but I was sore and tired myself so I understood. We all just chillaxed watching "Shadow Of The Vampire" and listening to Carol King before Spencer left to the movies and I left for the show with Evan.
We arrived at the warehouse around 8:30 and nothing had started yet. I guess all the touring bands had dropped off so semi-local band Zissou did as well. This left only 2 bands from the original lineup and a last-minute acoustic opener. Considering that this show was already pretty last-minute and had now pretty much disintegrated, Dial main-man Navis decided to just make it a free show. He had just gotten a snazzy new haircut and was justifiably feeling dope.
The first performer was a local homeboy who performs acoustic as Day Dreamer. Off the top of my head I think his name was Jared. I've seen him perform at open mic a few times before and was underwhelmed but this time was a bit better. For one thing his voice was stronger this time around; I seem to remember it being pretty shaky at open mic. He plays non-earth-shattering high school folk that I imagine is aiming to be kind of Dylan-esque, what with the harmonica and simplistic chord structures. At times he sounded like Conor Oberst but a bit more streamlined, or maybe the guy from The Raconteurs who's not Jack White. He messed up almost every song that he played but maintained a positive attitude and always kept going.

At first everything was cool, a bit cheesy like all high school folk (and really most folk in general) but not overly smushy-romantic or ideologically-political, but towards the end of the set things took a turn for the worse. First of all things felt like they were going long and even when he asked how much time he had left and somebody kinda said something along the lines of "not much longer" (or in lamens terms, "WRAP IT UP") he continued to play 2 more songs. One of them was about wanting to go to New York or something and it had really bad, obvious lyrics. The final song was the low point however, a cover of that gratingly shitty Lumineers song "Ho Hey" with that annoying "I belong with you, you belong with me" chorus that's seemingly picked straight from a prime-time Apple commercial. I actually had to look up the song for this review because although I was familiar with the tune I hate it so much I never knew who did it. It's not that his version was particularly bad or anything; I just really hate that song.
Navis wisely had the next band set up before Day Dreamer's set so when he was done they were able to get right up and play. Lake Elsinore's Ocean Man played next, a 4-piece pop punk band who reminded me of Face To Face or maybe No Use For A Name. Fat Wreck/Springman type pop punk that's not all cutesy like alot of modern stuff in that genre. All 3 guitarists had songs where they sang lead vocals, and occasionally they'd all have interspersed parts that came together kind of like Taking Back Sunday-style chantalongs. Their dopest song was called "See-Through" and although I can't remember what exactly distinguished it from the others but I do remember that song title. The rhythm guitar was greatly overpowering the lead guitar so I imagine maybe there were slight elements I didn't fully catch but I'd greatly be surprised if they turned out be revelatory passages that significantly improved what I did hear. These dudes were cool, definitely an adequate representation of the style they play, but nothing spectacular to write home about. Definitely not reinventing the wheel here. The rhythm guitar was covered in In-N-Out stickers; I should have gotten a picture of that.

Last band of the night was Welcome To Now, a pop-punk-core band very similar to trendy modern groups like Set Your Goals or Four Year Strong. One of the dudes was wearing an A Day To Remember T-shirt; that right there should be indicative. I have mixed feelings about these guys. On the one hand, they play a style that's being beaten to death at the Warped Tour and on Fuse TV right now and they're not doing anything to improve on it or add something new. The two guitarists weren't really in tune with each other as spot-on as they probably should have been, but they sure did jump to the 2-step parts in unison pretty good. The vocalist also didn't really sing in any key that made sense and despite their audible shortcomings they all had an air of self-assuredness that bordered on arrogance.
On the other hand, these kids are young and what I perceive as unwarranted self-confidence is probably just the natural result of being barely out of high school and not yet being so jaded on "the scene" and on life in general that you can't get stoked on jamming with and for your friends. These dudes have a natural, unadulterated enthusiasm for their jams that at once explains and somewhat outweighs their aforementioned technical deficiencies. Although from my point of view their style is a bit overdone right now, I guess each generation has their own trends that just make sense for them and feel intrinsic despite widespread duplication. Ocean Man more closely represented the type of pop punk that I myself had grown up; this is just the next phase of the same party.

Partway through their set the singer acknowledged the Dial's dopeness and thanked Navis for keeping this show after everybody dropped off; he pointed out that this show was free but rent on the warehouse is not and proceeded to put some money in the donation jar. That decidedly pushed them over the edge into the "dope" category in my book. They covered a Story So Far song and Evan ran in to sing along with everybody but I wasn't familiar with it.
After everything was done we brought in the chairs and the smoking table from outside and locked up the warehouse. It was a pretty mild night with hardly even any of the normal Dial crew to chill with but it was better than sitting in my room by myself all night.