THE STARTING LINE, BAYSIDE, & FOUR YEAR STRONG... AMAZING SHOW

On Friday night, Dusty, Pattitude, and I attended The Starting Line's farewell tour at the Electric Factory, as TSL prepares to go on a "hiatus" which basically means they're breaking up and won't be getting back together any time soon. Well they made sure to go out with a bang by lining up Bayside and Four Year Strong as their opening acts (Steel Train was the first opening act, but they were horrible so I won't bother acknowledging that they actually played). And an added bonus for this show was that The Starting Line were filming this show to eventually be put on DVD so automatically we wanted to go out of our ways to be seen on this DVD.

We started off the night up in the bar area of the Electric Factory for a pre show beer (which by the way was one of the worst beers I had ever had because I was grotesquely hungover that day from the previous night's engagements which involved Molson Golden). As soon as the the first band was done, we set off for the front of the crowd so we could adequately be able to get into Four Year Strong's set. We had seen them one previous time at The Troc but were sitting up in the bar area so we couldn't get into the music. As the band took the stage, Dusty and Pattitude rode the wave to basically the very front while I got a little more to the side which actually worked out for the best once crowd surfing commenced and I didn't have people dropping in on my head.

Four Year Strong played an amazing set (basically their whole cd that's out right now) which the crowd was definitely getting into. I was surrounded by an equal number of people who either extensively knew FYS's music and those who had no idea who they were... but everyone was getting into it. Throughout the whole show, there was a constant current going through the crowd. I was continually pushed back and forth as crowd surfing commenced and attempts were made to get a pit going. From my vantage point, I was never able to see a pit going on but the bands were reacting as if there were one so I'll go ahead and assume people were trying to dance.

Bayside came on next and their music seemed a lot more mellow sitting between Four Year Strong and The Starting Line. Bayside has been a long time favorite of mine and this was my first chance to see them live and they did not disappoint. Musically and vocally, they were on par with their records and with their live show, they were able to get me to end my embargo on their self-titled album, which had long been my least favorite of their albums. It's all I've been listening to in my car the last few days...

Finally, the cameras were put in place and The Starting Line came out to a ruckus crowd. There was a camera on a dolly floating above the crowd for most of the show getting crowd shots so that'll be my best chance to be on camera but the fact that I was more towards to the left might hinder that. Dusty and Pattitude were front and center so they probably got more camera time but they paid the price by having people landing on top of them via crowd surfing.

Considering that this was their last tour, TSL pulled out all the stops in their song selections playing a lot of their older stuff while still mixing in some of their newer songs. They were very business-like, not really talking too much in between songs, which probably can be attributed to the fact that the show was filmed. But, it was funny seeing how many of the young Starting Line fans didn't know any of their old stuff, which I consider to be their best stuff. Dusty was intent on hearing "Greg's Last Day", one of their oldest songs and had planned on yelling for it until they played it. Unfortunately for him, that was the second song they played so he was able to fulfill the role of "that guy"...haha.

All in all, it was an amazing show and as an added bonus, I was able to grab one of the TSL guitar picks they were throwing out to the crowd after the show. What can I say, I got caught up in the frenzy...