Sunny Day Real Estate
This past Saturday in Atlanta, I had the pleasure of attending the latest stop in Sunny Day Real Estate’s reunion tour. Sunny Day is one of those bands that I always wish I had the chance to see, so when the reunion was announced, attending this show was a no brainer. The history of the Seattle band is a fairly well known one if you have been around the emo/indie circle for the past 15 years. If you don’t know their story, then I can assure you, Sunny Day Real Estate is the most influential band you’ve never heard of. My excitement for the show was already enormous, but the anticipation continued to grow especially when I caught their performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon just a few days prior and came away impressed at how good they looked. The show didn’t let me down a bit, and I came away even more excited for the future of the group.
The concert took place at Center Stage, which is a venue I had never even heard of, much less seen a show at. Capacity at Center Stage is 1100 and tickets were sold out for the show well in advance. The setup for the venue is auditorium style seating with standing room in front of the stage…pretty typical. We got there shortly after doors opened and had about an hour or so until the opener took the stage. That opener was LA’s The Jealous Sound, and bless their hearts, no one really cared about them…and they knew it. They were obviously honored to be opening for SDRE on this tour but were fully aware that opening for a legendary band, they were pretty much an afterthought. Also, they weren’t very good. Thankfully, they only played about a 45 minute set and quickly vacated the stage so Sunny Day could get going.
The band walked out to a dark stage and a huge applause from crowd. They opened with the opening track from LP2, “Friday”, which was an interesting choice, but maybe they just wanted to warm the crowd up before transitioning into the hugely popular and most recognizable song, “Seven”. For most listeners of SDRE, “Seven” is the song that makes the band’s first and lasting impression, as the song opens their classic debut album Diary, one of the best and most influential albums of the last 20 years. It was the first Sunny Day Real Estate song I ever heard, and it made me an instant fan all those years ago, so hearing it live was a dream for me, and probably for most of the concert goers that night. For me, the highlight of the whole show was early on when the band played “Song About an Angel” another one of the staple tracks from Diary. I gained a new appreciation for this song during the band’s performance of it. Much of that had to do with the crowd participation. Now, I am not one of the fans who can say Sunny Day Real Estate and Diary helped me through some tough times and can empathize with the lyrics or anything. However, it was evident there were many of those kind of fans at this show and they weren’t going to hold anything back. SDRE fed off the fans and played their most inspired song of the set. Hearing an auditorium full of fans yelling “Sometimes you see right through me, WHOAAAA!” was really an eye opening experience to see the impact this band really had on not just music as a whole, but the people who listened to their tunes.
Another highlight of the show was when the band played “Guitar and Video Games” from their third album How It Feels To Be Something On. Not only is it a great song, but it was a surprise for me to hear them play anything from albums other than Diary and LP2 (I didn’t read anything about their previous shows on the tour). Since this tour consists of the original lineup, which is only responsible for the band’s first two albums, only songs Diary and LP2 were really hyped as being a part of the tour, so anything else was a little bonus. And speaking of bonuses, it was very cool to hear a brand new song from the band that they are debuting on this tour. According the this site, the song is entitled “10” (the band just called it “New Song”), but whatever the case, it was great to hear something new from the band. All in all, the set consisted of 14 songs, including a 3 song encore consisting of “In Cirlces”, “48”, and a “J’Nuh” which surprisingly served as an excellent closer. Seven of the songs came from Diary, while 5 were from LP2, with the one from How It Feels to Be Something On, and of course the new song.
I suppose I can’t go on without saying that it was kind of a surreal experience seeing these guys play songs that were written 15 years ago. They were obviously in a different place when those songs were penned, so it would be understandable if they didn’t play the songs with the same passion and emotion that they were known for. But that is not how it came across at all. Jeremy Enigk’s voice is as distinctive as ever (of course, his solo albums are a testament to that) and the band played with the energy one would hope for in a reunion show that the whole band is excited about. None of the members came across as jaded from the rest of the group, and all the songs were incredibly tight, which is to be expected from four great musicians. What I will probably remember the most about the night (other than “Song About an Angel”) is how appreciative the band was to its fans. It has to be a humbling experience for a band that broke up almost 10 years ago to see how much they mean to the music community and the impact they have had on its fans. Every chance the band got, they thanked the crowd in easily the most genuine fashion I have ever seen at a concert. In just about every song, Enigk and guitarist Dan Hoerner couldn’t help but break out in smiles as they gazed throughout the crowd to see everyone singing along. It probably took a tour like this for SDRE to realize how important they were, and still are, to so many people. At one point in the show, when they finished playing their new song, someone in the crowd yelled out “Write some more!”, to which will Enigk replied “We will…” and paused before continuing on “…just give us some time.” Well after 8 plus years, I think we’re willing have the patience to wait a little longer, and it should be well worth the wait.
[“Song About an Angel” – Diary]
A Round of Sound 