Headliner: Blindside
Also featured: Broken Sunday,
Date: 07-08-04
Venue: The Intersection in Grand Rapids, MI
Rating:
Reviewer: DJ Booker

I was recently invited to a random show in Grand Rapids by a friend that I barely even know. I had never even heard of the band that was headlining it before, so I had little idea what to expect. Sounds kind of sketchy, I know, but I figured that since I’m somewhat of a sketchy writer that works for a kind of sketchy magazine, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The venue was The Intersection, so I admit that I was skeptical at first, since I’m not too much of a fan of a lot of bands that play at the Intersection. Also, Christian rock really isn’t my thing either, and Blindside is a Christian band. Fortunately it was a decently good show all around and I wasn‘t forced to go on a serial killing due to over-exposure of bad music and Christianity.

Most of the show was decently good, but not all of it. The first band was actually quite decently not good. I don’t know, I haven’t seen a lot of Christian bands to compare them with, but still I think their music was of kindergartener composition, they had very little talent, and their lyrics were stale. They actually had one song, I admit, that was kinda catchy, but that was about all they had. I never did get their name, but that’s ok with me.

Anyway, the next band was Broken Sunday, and I thought they were pretty good. Their music was fairly good, much better than the band before. They had a talented lead guitar player, and their lead singer sang like it was going out of style (whatever that means). A person might guess that “he used to be a choir boy” (quote from friend).

The third, and final, band was of course Blindside. This was, as expected, the best band of the night. Once they came on stage it was like the crowd finally woke up. People got loud and pushy and shovy. They started their set out with “Follow you down”, a song with a good hooky chorus to warm the crowd up with. The guys were full of energy and seemed to get the crowd more and more excited as the concert progressed. They followed that with “Caught a glimpse” and “Pitiful”. I liked the hard, intense guitar riff of “Pitiful”. It’s one of their more hardcore songs, and the riff is quite headbangable. Not that I head bang. Anyway, they then moved on with “Shekina”, “Endings”, and “Time”. “Shekina” really changed the mood of the crowd. It’s a slower, calm song that sharply contrasted the stuff before it.

The crowd wasn’t even doing anything while this was playing. Then after these songs they played “Sleepwalking”, “Swallow”, and then ended the concert with “Cute boring love”. “Cute boring love” was a decently rocking song, but I’m surprised they didn’t end the concert with something a little harder. They did however have a nice spasmodic and violent way of ending the final song. Overall I give this concert a 3.2 out of 5. I had no real problems with Blindside other than the fact that a couple of their songs were a little redundant. It was just the other bands that weren’t up to par.