Up to this point, I was a concert attendee and occasional photographer. The only exception was my participation with the Sick Puppies World Crew. With the next show, I started filming as well as collecting memorabilia.
Since I started to follow concerts more closely, I discovered ways of getting free tickets. In 2009, ticket giveaways weren’t as prevalent as they are now. They were still mostly with the radio stations. An alternative station in NYC WRXP was one such station that had some great giveaways. They were also sponsoring concerts at a new small venue in Tribeca, the PC Richards Theater (which became the iHeartRadio Theatre). I was able to get on the list for the Silversun Pickups show, one of the first shows at that theater.
I had heard Silversun Pickups while playing the game Rock Band, Lazy Eye being one of my favorite tracks in the game. I originally thought the lead singer was a woman and I understand I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Once I started reviewing their discography, I quickly became a fan. And as an avid plastic drum player, watching Chris Guanlao play with his head and hair bouncing madly up and down was a big kick.
I arrived in the early afternoon with my laptop so I could get some work done while I was waiting on line. The venue itself is tiny, holding 100 comfortably and 200 if we all crammed in. In the absence of a barricade, I was right up against the stage. The setup was very simple with Brian Aubert playing acoustic guitar, Nikki Monninger on bass, Chris on a 4-piece drum set, and Joe on a tiny piano.
Since they had recently released their CD Swoon, I was hoping they would play some songs from the new CD. I was not disappointed. They played 6 songs from their catalog: Growing Old is Getting Old, Well Thought Out Twinkies, Substitution, Panic Switch, Creation Lake, and Lazy Eye. They didn’t play my favorite tracks from the new CD but the inclusion of Creation Lake made up for it in a big way. Nikki is truly adorable as the lead in that track. The acoustic versions of the songs were very well done and Brian sounded great! I was able to snag the first decent video clip (Growing Old is Getting Old) that I uploaded to YouTube.
While the sets at the PC Richards Theater shows are usually brief, they are unique in the cozy venue and small crowd size. If you have the opportunity to go to a show there, definitely do so. After the show, I grabbed my first setlist and said a quick hello to Brian and Nikki when they were smoking out back.