Q101 Block Party- Day Two Entertainment Art Charter One at Northerly Island Chicago, Ill. June 16, 2007

Despite all of that it should be said that the bands themselves really weren’t all that bad. Just like the day before the first band on stage had the unfortunate curse of being the opening act and sadly not many people were paying attention during their set. This is a pity because Shiny Toy Guns is truly a good band and new enough to not be pretentious yet about their work. It should be noted that Shiny Toy Guns did not actually appear on the ticket given at the show so throughout the night it became obvious that every band who followed them had to mention them at least once. Now that is not official information, but far from coincidence.

Unlike yesterday the second band did not seem to have the effect of waking everyone up as Taproot did. Though The Bravery had good intentions they seemed to have a problem getting through to their audience. It may lie in the fact that many people, it seemed, were still just getting to the pavilion when they took the stage.

As a whole The Bravery has a lot of potential but they seem to be sticking within their structure a little too much to please the crowd. From high up in the seats it seemed as if only select pockets of people were really getting into the music while others seemed to be milling about the stadium forgetting the fact that they were at a concert. From an elevated perspective much of the early half of the show felt more like a social gathering.

Right about the halfway point of the show, which still seemed very early with the sun still high in the air, the day started to really feel like a concert. By the time Sum 41 took the stage everyone had gathered as close as they could to the front and the concert could finally begin. Sum 41 is one of those bands where no matter how much time has passed they never seem to age. Back when I was in high school they were just hitting the mainstream scene and the weird thing is that looking at the crowd Saturday night they’re main audience still seems to be the same age of high school teenagers.

More than anything Sum 41 is a band made for a live audience and they are still full of surprises as well. With spiky hair and a Jackass type attitude the band masqueraded onstage soaking up every crazy fan in the audience. Made up of mostly upper class suburban kids the lyrics of Sum 41 seemed to really speak to them. Calls for revolution and rebellion against the upper class somehow seemed hypocritical considering many of those attending the show were no doubt upper class kids. One of the biggest shocks of the night came when the band started pelting out classic Motown and Elvis. Their covers really weren’t that bad and interesting takes on the old favorites.

Now what happened next was a mixture of both bad timing and the general consensus to the people at the show. Good Charlotte seemed to be off their game that Saturday night. To be absolutely fair one must keep in mind the general age of the audience, mostly underage and in high school, which needed to be home before curfew. But after Good Charlotte’s first song people seemed to be leaving in larger and larger numbers. I guess after a day’s worth of mainstream popular punk music the message that Good Charlotte was preaching must have seemed like old news.

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