Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Fake Problems

It's been awhile, music blog.

Last week I went to see Fake Problems. I was selected on Facebook as one of the lucky winners who got to see them for free. It was pretty cool, except that I use a false identity on Facebook. Which is funny because I was going to see a band called Fake Problems and I had a problem that really wasn't that big of a deal (even if the venue didn't buy my story about using a false online persona, it was still only $10 to get in and not really a problem).

But the venue did believe my story, so it all worked out. And even if they hadn't, it was still a great show. Fake Problems are definitely one of my favorite current bands out there right now and they put on a hell of a show.

What I really liked about their set is that they didn't just focus on songs from their most recent output, like so many bands do when they tour (even though Real Ghosts Caught on Tape is my favorite Fake Problems album). Instead, they played a collection of songs throughout their career, not hesitating to play b-sides that only people who illegally downloaded them would know. They plowed through songs, but still had time for stage banter and interaction with the audience. They even changed things up by having an acoustic portion in the middle of the set rather than toward the end. The crowd reaction calling for the encore was a little weak, but it was a tiny crowd to begin with and it was finals week for many city colleges and people probably needed to go finish their papers. It was still a blast either way though. If you're even remotely interested in this band and see that they're coming to your town: just go see them. You won't be disappointed.

(I'm bad at show reviews, but in my defense the show was a week ago and I'm extremely tired.)

I was going to make a Top 5 list of my favorite Fake Problems songs, but I don't think I can narrow it down to five and I don't think I want to try. Not right now anyway. If it's just based on play count on my computer, it would be heavily biased toward Real Ghosts, but I know that I'd want to include other tracks and I'm just not awake enough to judge it fairly right now. Maybe tomorrow. Or never haha.