Last year I saw Surefire play probably around 15 times at least. Ever since that first show on superbowl sunday, I was blown away by the amount of talent exhibited by four guys just barely out of high school at the time. They were a phenom then, raved about by most every blogger and the young girls found them to be something in the way of very attractive to say the least. And they had the skills to match, so much so that it it seemed like a near-perfect package, granted slightly rough around the edges but there was something so appealing about their live shows that I could bring anyone to see them, old and young, and they would leave more than happy that I had dragged them along.
Admittedly, up until last night, it has been a little while since I have seen Surefire live. They haven't been playing out as much, concentrating on recording instead and I missed their last show because I was sick or hungover or some other often used excuse. Well, shame on me. And honestly, thank god I didn't trade on any of those excuses last night, because what I witnessed at Bowery Ballroom was something along the lines of overwhelming awesomeness.
From the start of their set, which they kicked off with my favorite Surefire song "The Man Beside Her," the band was on fire. A little..or a lot edgier than I have ever seen them before, and with unreal amounts of rock and roll flare, they tore through a set of songs -- most of which I had never even heard before - including one with a powerful chorus called "What Else Could I Say?" and their catchy new single "Hung" (which is available on their website). Ben's vocals have really come into their own, and his songwriting remains top notch, and flanked by Nick and his synchronized jumping and other onstage antics and stellar guitar playing and Jacob bleeding himself to death (literally) on his bass, this band seems to me to be nearly unstoppable. Considering how packed the room was, they could very well have been headlining Bowery last night, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was soon the case.
For goodness sake, I have rambled on for a long time now, so I will just leave this by saying that I will post when their next show is and cannot stress enough how much you should go.
I got home at 11:30 exhausted, only to check my email and find out that I was on the guest list for Mercury Rev/Doves. Fuck. So that sucked, and I am bummed to have to miss them, but I came home and watched three insanely awesome hours of TV (Lost/Alias) which blew my mind so much that after the show and everything sleep was nearly so impossible I actually considered going to see Star Wars at 3am just to prolong the buzz. But no.. I'm doing that this afternoon instead. And then more fun TV like Britney + Kevin: Chaotic which I strangely cannot stop watching and if I still went to NYU I would probably end up writing a term paper about it. No, really...
Ok, I'm done here for now. Too much babbling. More pictures!
