Dashboard Confessional’s lead singer, former FAU student and Boca native Chris Carraba, took the stage ready to rock his hometown crowd. Referring to them as the “Home team,” Carraba asked the crowd if they were ready to rock, and they responded with deafening cheers and applause.
Dashboard Confessional, along with Thrice, The Get Up Kids, and Hot Water Music, made up the Civic Tour that hit the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre on June 15.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dashboard Confessional, it was created as a side project by Carraba when he was in a Pompano-area band called Further Seems Forever.
Carraba’s poetic lyrics and heart wrenching tunes have branded Dashboard as an “Emo” band. In fact, in a cover story for Spin Magazine, they labeled him “The reigning king of emo.” Loosely, what the terms means is that their music is overtly emotional, but the term is much broader than that. For more information on “Emo,” see opposite page.
The title “Emo” is like a scarlet “E” on the chest of those bands that bear it. Concert attendee and music enthusiast, Keith Rubin, a sophomore at FAU, had this to say about the “Emo” pigeonhole: “No one likes the label, but for some reason it sticks, and those bands can’t seem to shake it.” The name looms over these bands like a dark cloud. Rubin even referred to it as a “disease.”
You may see nothing wrong with a band being labeled as “Emo,” but in the state that the music industry is in, getting a label like “Emo” can really limit your following. Think about it, what dude is gonna want to listen to another dude crying?
The “Emo” label also has its perks, considering a good portion of the crowd was made up of girls younger than 20. More like 15 or 16. Nineteen-year-old Rubin said he “felt like an old man.”
I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing with all that jailbait walking around, but one thing is for sure: Dashboard attracts little girls like moths to a flame, and that flame’s name is Chris Carraba. So I guess we should thank him for that.
Dashboard wasn’t the sole reason that all the concertgoers were at the Amphitheatre. The Get Up Kids have a cult following of their own. They played their biggest hits like “Action and Action,” “Stay Gone,” and when they busted out with the mellower “I’ll Catch You,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. They also played songs from their latest album, The Guilt Show.
“They put on a great show,” FAU senior Courtney Kuhn said
Hot Water Music also put on a heck of a show. The band hailing from Gainesville, Florida opened up the show, and fit right in with the “Emo” motif that seemed to be happening. According to Fourfa.com, they were listed under the coveted “Emocore” category. These guys get their props, and rightfully so.
Dashboard, The Get Up Kids, and Hot Water Music can all be found under “Emo” at your local library, so where does Thrice fit in? The hard rock sounds and undecipherable shouting made Thrice seem like a fish out of water at the event. Well, “Emo” or not, Thrice still kicked some serious butt. After The Get Up Kids’ set was over, Thrice took the stage and gave this mellow crowd a rude awakening. “They were good, but I’m not into all that screaming,” Kuhn said.
Corporate sponsorship makes for strange bedfellows. It’s apparent that Thrice and Carraba would never have hooked up if this tour was put together the traditional way, by the bands themselves.
Selling out isn’t even selling out anymore. In the sink-or-swim music industry, only the yachts stay afloat, so you gotta jump onboard in order to survive. Rubin commented on Honda’s role in the tour. He, like the rest of us, is opposed to corporate manipulation of popular culture. On the other hand he said, “If that’s the only way a show like this could be assembled, then so be it.”
The Honda sponsored Civic Tour wouldn’t have been complete without its shameless self-promotion, at which you could see the special edition Dashboard/Chris Carraba edition Civic, signed by the man himself.
The exclusive Civic Lounge also allowed concertgoers to surrender their personal information online in order to get a chance to spin a wheel of prizes. Most of the prizes were tokens that you could use to log on to a computer that would allow you to surrender more information and time to the good people at Honda. There were also CDs and T-shirts that the spinning wheel could land on, though it rarely did.
When asked to comment on the incorporation of the Honda corporation, Carraba said it was to avoid “passing the cost of very expensive concert venues down to the fans,” according to an interview in New Times. All right, we’ll buy that, but what we won’t buy is a Honda just because their name is on this tour.
Carraba honed his skills in tiny coffee shops and dive bars, so the jump to a huge tour and a venue that holds 2,500 plus (considering they sell infinite standing-room-only tickets) is a big move for this former Boca resident.
Rubin has seen their show before, and said, “I was surprised to see the show remained as intimate as it was. It was the same show, just bigger.”Kuhn added, “I thought it was so cool how everyone was singing along to all his songs.”
The intimacy of Carraba’s show has remained untainted since Dashboard burst onto the mainstream with their latest album, A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar. Along with a soon-to-be hit single off the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack called “Vindicated.”
Those rooting for Dashboard and Carraba hope he can keep his feet on the ground and a level head while the rest of him is elevated to teen idol status. Be careful, Chris, we all know what happened to that Dell kid.
Corporate or not, “Emo” or not, one thing’s for sure: Dashboard and the rest of the Civic Tour lineup rocked the crowd at the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre. Losing my voice singing along couldn’t have been more fun, and I’m sure the rest of the crowd would agree.
