2005 / March 7^th/ Warfield

Last night’s show of O.A.R. and The Southland was awesome, albeit much different than my previous O.A.R. shows.

I found it comical that it had been exactly one year and one day since I experienced my first O.A.R. show. Why do I say experienced and not saw? Because my first O.A.R. show was something to be experienced. It was unlike any show I had ever been to, and likely any show that I will ever go to again. It was a small crowd of maybe 200 college students in the Jenny Craig Theatre (yes… the Jenny Craig Theatre) in USD. A very intimate experience. There were no security gaurds, no railings. Just the band and the audience.

But the most amazing thing was not the venue, but the crowd itself. Everyone knew all the lyrics. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. The only other show I had been to where the audience actually drowned out the singer was a Green Day show. But that was different. That was over a thousand people screaming. This was just a few hundred, singing along to quite complicated lyrics at times.

The Warfield was different. While there was a good number of people that knew lyrics to a few songs here and there, it was a different experience. Not to mention bigger. Much bigger. The Warfield was almost packed, and the small crowd I once remembered could have been packed into the floor space of the Warfield - let alone the vast seats in the balcony.

But I still had fun, through the high school drama and the drunken kiddies. It let me finally experience the growth of a band first hand. Last year this time, almost no one knew who O.A.R. was and I was finally getting to go to my first show (one year delayed, I might add… but that’s another story). This time, O.A.R. had been on the radio, hell - I’d even heard them in a gas station bathroom.

But I’ll tell you, the band that really impressed me was The Southland. Check them out - you won’t be dissapointed. I was also lucky enough to get a hold of their debut album (2 days off the press!). It’s kind of an Indie meets Jam Band type of music, and I for one, love it. They’re now the second band (the first being Guster) that O.A.R. has had open for them that I really like. With any hope, they’ll allow taping of their shows and they’ll start being available on the archive soon…

Oh, and Jerry Harrison from the Talking Heads was there. Awesome.

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