While everyone in Los Angeles was out seeing Dave Matthews and John Mayer this past week, I went to two f’ing awesome shows myself.
First, I saw one of my all time favorite (and unknown) frontmen, Franky Perez, rock it out at the Key Club with his new band of rockers called Carnival Of Dogs. The band featurs Matt Sorum (Guns n’ Roses) on the drums and Tracii Guns (LA Guns) on guitar and Phil Soussan (Ozzy and Billy Idol etc) on the bass. They do nothing but kick ass rock covers like The Allman Bros’ “Whipping Post” or AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. It kicked ass.
(that’s from 7 years ago and now he just rocks harder)
Secondly, I saw one of my favorite bands from when I was younger, and actually still today, Something Corporate. After putting out just a couple of miraculously emo piano punk rock albums, SoCo broke up, probably having a lot to do with Andrew Mcmahon, the lead singer, fighting leukemia. He won that fight and founded Jack’s Mannequin as more of a solo project with a different backing band, but the old crew was back on a reunion show and they really rocked my world. I saw it at The Grove in Anaheim, which is their home town and the crowd was incredibly vocal about their love for the band. I’ve never heard so much singing along with their killer lyrics (one of my favorites…”i met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved, if i were her, i’d paint my body ’til all my skin was gone”). They encored with the 12 minute power emo balad “Konstantine” and my favorite song of theirs, “I Woke Up In A Car” and that, plus the $5 long island iced teas made the night perfect.
