A lot of great stuff has happened at Full Frame this week. It’s all sort of whirled by thus explaining the lack of blog posts, which we will make up for in the coming days with reviews, Q&A bits, etc.
Unrelated to the festival, the most exciting thing might have been my Orlando Bloom sighting outside the Armory Saturday morning. Main Street bonanza is on its way.
Courtesy Merge Records.
Sorry to be a little late on this (Full Frame all day). Merge has released some details on its 20th anniversary festival, XX Merge. The event is a centerpiece of the local label’s year-long anniversay celebration.
Four nights of the July 22-26 festival will be held at the Cradle, with a fifth at UNC’s Memorial Hall. Bands include Spoon, Superchunk (0bviously), the Broken West, the Rosebuds, Polvo (!!), Destroyer, Guv’nur, Spent, M. Ward, Connor Oberst, Pipe and “many more expected & unexpected.” It’s a solid set list, but who else is still holding up for a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion?
Five-day passes are available for $150. Passes go on sale April 8 at 10 a.m. More details are available here.
5.11 “Whatever Happened, Happened”
Boohoo. Courtesy Sepinwall.
The title certainly implies a rather blasé attitude toward the series of drastic (although not necessarily life-altering) events that Sayid literally shot into motion last week, but I’m sure Hurley would disagree. And he isn’t the only one suffering some slight befuddlement from having to live through the past, which has already happened before even though his present self is just now experiencing it for the first time. Everyone on board? Now for a tour of what I consider to be the highlights of everything that happened exactly the way it was supposed to, starting with little Ben’s big predicament:
“He needs a real surgeon.”
Once again, Jack faces the same conundrum that first presented itself when an adult Ben lay on the operating table with his spine exposed. And once again, Juliet refuses to just let the guy bleed out. Admittedly, this time around that would probably create more problems than solve them, but one still has to admire the tenacity with which everyone tries to keep little Ben alive despite knowing that his future self tossed them rather rudely into the ninth circle of hell. I guess they all understand on some Faradian level that Ben simply can’t die, but I find it interesting that they take this responsibility upon themselves while Jack would rather let the island resolve everything on its own, believing that Ben is going to live whether he helps him to or not. Perhaps he also feels some residual satisfaction at telling Kate he is not going to do this for her—again.
Other photos from Maddie Lieberberg’s photo shoot with Hammer No More the Fingers at the Duke Coffeehouse. For Kevin Lincoln’s story, click here.
The Dashboard Confessional an angst-ridden 14-year-old version of me loved so much was the one of The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most and The Swiss Army Romance. Chris Carrabba was just a guy with a guitar and a broken heart. “Hands Down” was just an acoustic track off the So Impossible EP, and Carrabba’s outlet was unabashedly emo and indie–two words that were only on the verge of having negative connotations. I never saw Dashboard at that point in my life, and I ultimately grew out of it. But seeing Carrabba live has always been an unchecked item on my bucket list.
So when the opportunity to not only see the band but meet Mr. Dashboard Confessional himself, how could I pass it up? In hindsight, everything is 20/20. I could have.
I didn’t go inside for opener Cobalt & the Hired Guns. It sounded like quite the mess from outside the building. And my sources inside confirmed as much.
After a good 30 minutes between sets, Dashboard emerged. The 5-piece outfit established from the beginning that this is not the Dashboard of 2001. The band emerged one at time, building anticipation, with Carrabba coming out last. They kicked the off with “Don’t Wait” from 2006′s Dusk and Summer. Carrabba, in a fedora and standard tight jeans, moved into “Rooftops & Invitations” from the same album, but then took it back to the band’s earlier days with “The Good Fight.” The band only featured five songs from the 2006 or later. What plagued all of these, however, was the muddy musical quality. The band just ended a three-month touring break and their out-of-practice status showed, though the quality did improve toward the end. Moreover, it was clear for the whole 15-song set that Carrabba’s strength is neither his songwriting nor his vocal abilities. It his earnesty.
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