Ticker Tape Parade played first and were aight. They're an unsigned rock group from Arizona...and by rock I mean more like the Jimmy Eat World type of rock. One of the band members was wearing a Rocky Votolato t-shirt and they did a pretty fun cover of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." We had an awesome balcony spot...front and center, but there was a crazy girl next to us who was screaming and flailing her arms around willy nilly. Willy Nilly I tell you! I figured she must have been here for this group.

Anathallo was next and was the highlight of the evening for me. As they were setting up their instruments Shayna and I were mesmerized... on top of the normal instruments and a regular drum set were three other drums set up on the stage, as well as two xylophones, multiple types of horns, keyboards and pots and pans. When we saw local poet Thax take the stage (think Allen Ginsberg disciple) I was shocked. He usually tends to read poetry for more indie bands....what was he doing here? I knew then the show was going to be something special. The show started off with an amazing performance of "Dokkoise House (with face covered)" a great song/performance arts piece in which band members ran from instrument to instrument playing in a frenzy reminiscent of the Arcade Fire. The set was consistently good, and they even played a 3 part dirge for a dog that they wanted to bring back. Wonderful. Oh, and crazy girl continued yelling and flailing for them. At one point she was suspended about halfway over the rail and was trying to clap along. I was really worried that she would just fall over the edge. (Or hopefull, whatever.) I swear this girl is the most horrible clapper I have ever heard. It was like she was trying to miss ever opportunity to clap correctly. You know the part in Peter Pan where Tinkerbell needs everyone who believes in faeries to clap their hands for her to live...she would have stayed dead. That's all I'm saying. Bless her heart though, she was probably the most excited person in the place.

June was the least impressive act of the night. After a couple of songs I excused myself and went to go grab a copy of the most recent Anathallo CD (which has the most beautiful packaging EVER!) and chat with one of the (dreamy) Anathallo members. They will be playing Lollapalooza! GLEE! Oh yeah, and then June played some more.

The Format wrapped up the evening perfectly. I hadn't seem them live since right around the time I moved to Chicago, opening for Switchfoot. At that time I only knew a couple of songs. Since then I had fallen in love and was thankful they had finally gotten around to getting back to Chicago and give us a preview of their upcoming album! The band were great and lovingly humble, saying they loved Chicago and that the gig (their first headlining gig in Chicago) was the biggest headlining gig they had ever played outside of their homestate, which was especially impressive as they had just opened here a couple of days earlier for Motion City Soundtrack. Highlights of the night were, of course, "the First Single" as well as "On Your Porch," which Shayna will tell you "they have done amazing things with." And she is right. It starts off beautifully acoustic (only ruined marginally by the drunk guy behind us yelling "I just got my pubes" during this part. At least I think that's what he said) and building in intensity as the song continues. The new songs all sound great too...I can't wait for the new album!

The band got the biggest encore cheer I have heard in a long time. Before the guys had even left the stage the crowd started cheering "one more song" which was cool but like...I want more than one more! Luckily they wanted to play more than that too, giving the crowd three more songs. The first song was called "Faith in Fast Cars" and was fantastic. Then the band talked about how they just did their first real photo shoot and they got pictures of themselves playing with dogs! Then they talked about how their next song, "Snails," use to be a song to a dog with the lyrics "take it slow" but the dog ran away so they've changed the lyrics to "please come home." Awwwww. They ended with a great version of (I believe) Tie the Rope. A great time was had by all. The photos (to be uploaded) are care of Shayna's sister.