Brand New w/Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms – PPL Center, November 11th, 2016

Disclaimer: This review is only for Brand New’s set, not Modern Baseball or The Front Bottoms.

Brand New is currently staring down their demise. After announcing their intentions to break up in 2018 earlier this year, the group has been touring relentlessly while simultaneously working on a new, and presumably final, album. They’ve also released a bevy of miscellaneous singles, vinyl reissues for their seminal albums, and even an EP of rerecorded tracks from their infamous 2006 leak. After many years of indecision and stalling out, the band has obviously been looking both backwards and forwards as they attempt to end their career on a high note. Part of that looking backwards has coincided with the tenth anniversary of their landmark album, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. With the band in such generous, celebratory spirits, they’ve chosen to play the album in full on every stop of their most recent North American tour.

Now, I’m only a recent convert to Brand New – I discovered them last November after buying Deja Entendu solely because I recognized its iconic cover. What I found on that album was some of the most personal, heart wrenching lyricism I’d ever heard, paired with huge hooks and undeniable melodies that were totally at odds with the pained words they carried. I fell in love immediately and dove deep into their catalog, becoming obsessed and memorizing every line. I was very, very late to the party, but I was oh so happy I found them at all. So for them to announce their break up so shortly after my newfound fandom broke my heart, yet also made me determined to catch them live at least once before their end.

I finally crossed that off my musical bucket list on November 11^th, 2016. Brand New rolled through Allentown, PA and brought Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms with them to the PPL Center, an 8,000+ capacity venue that I had no idea that the band was capable of filling (which I’m quite happy to be wrong about!). But filled it was, filled with rapturous, adoring fans fully aware that this may be the last time they ever get to see this band grace the stage and fueled by the fond memories of some of the most important rock records of the 2000s. And in the spirit of embracing those memories, the band opened up with “Mixtape”, one of the rare songs the band still plays from their debut record Your Favorite Weapon. In its original incarnation, this song is youthful, energetic, a little sad, and a little snarky. But on this night, it sounds beleaguered, reflective of youth gone by, and weighed down by the passage of time. But that mood fits what’s to follow perfectly: the band may be looking at its past, but it’s not attempting to recreate it. And it’s Jesse’s voice that gives that song much of its new quality: as Jesse nears 40, his voice has changed considerably, but not for the worse. Where it once sounded naive and wounded, he sounds huskier and more resolute than ever, blasting through the music with a power and confidence rarely shown in Brand New’s music. As the set continued, the band played a good chunk of 2003’s Deja Entendu, enough of which to make me curious as to whether they were actually playing that album instead. Touching upon the classic “Sic Transit Gloria…”, “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” (which featured a snippet of Modest Mouse’s “Trailer Trash”), and an emotional venue-wide sing along to “Play Crack the Sky”, they got many of their “hits” out of the way and lulled the crowd into a false sense of security before launching into The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me.

From the opening notes of “Sowing Season”, the crowd went crazy. This album means so much to so many people and you could feel it in the room: from beginning to end, every word was being shouted out in unison, filling the room with just as much of the crowd’s voice as Jesse’s. And this being the second to last stop on the tour, it was clear that any kinks that may have been in the set had long since been worked out. The band faithfully recreated the album note for note, bestowing it with much of the same passion and energy that they had laid to tape ten years ago. But instead of being the heart-wrenching, stomach-churning experience that it is on the album, when rendered in this live setting, it became something more positive and celebratory. It’s hard to feel sad when thousands of people are joining along with this music, and it makes it clear why the band decided to adopt “Fight Off Your Demons” as their pet phrase- this isn’t music to suffer to, it’s music to unite to, to take strength from. And by taking this opportunity to perform the album in full, they’ve highlighted for us the reasons why they’ll be so missed, even though they aren’t quite gone yet.