You're a Scared Mother Fucker, Go To Church

Andrew Jackson Jihad - The Smith Street Band - Jeff Rosenstock - Chumped (4/10/15 @ The Irenic, San Diego CA)

Last Friday's show was fucking weird. It started off normal, with delicious pizza at Luigi's, then cruise down the street to the venue. Nothing out of the ordinary here!

Except the venue is a church. Like a real life, worship by day functional church. Apparently it is run by a non-profit organization who rents it out for all ages shows, including a "bar" in the back (so what if it's a cooler and a fold up table, they have PBR!) This is the 3rd time I have been to this place, and every time I feel weird as shit being there.

The crowd was a weird mix of X'd out hands children and surly looking old dudes with beards. I'll give you one chance to guess which half of the crowd I fit in with. Before we went in, my body was still sore from the car crash I was in earlier in the week, so I was given a couple of hydrocodone pills. Needless to say, I was feeling a little floaty. Not a fucking care in the world. You probably could have drop kicked me in the face, and I would have just been like, that was an impressive drop kick man. Walking into the venue, I decided to get a cup of wine from the "bar", it being the blood of Christ and all and me wanting to cement my position in hell.

Chumped Jeff Rosenstock

This band gets on stage, and I have no idea who they are. I'm a Bomb the Music Industry fan, so I was excited to see Jeff Rosenstock, but I haven't seen BtMI play in like 3 years, plus I was technically on drugs, plus Jeff kind of looked like a Muppet. So I didn't immediately recognize the band. And on top of that I expected him to play before Andrew Jackson, not "first."

Anyway, once I realized it was Jeff Rosenstock I was stoked. They played songs off their 2 albums, I Look Like Shit and We Cool?. Surprisingly, they didn't play a single BtMI song, which to me, is a good thing (since this is a different band entirely, and you don't want to get stuck feeling like you HAVE to play your old bands songs), but I can tell some people were a little disappointed. They did still have the BtMI-esque 20 minutes of talking in between songs, that I personally love. 

Actually, everyone kind of looked like a Muppet.

Chumped The Smith Street Band

The next band took the stage and I again had no idea who they are. I wasn't sure if it was going to be Chumped or Smith Street Band, but the singer had an unmistakable Australian accent, so I knew it was the SSB. I never really listened to them before this, and they started kind of slow and a little bit boring, so I went to go buy a new PBR and smoke a cigarette and talk to Matt Caskitt and Steffen about the awesome show I missed the previous Saturday (Masked Intruder, Success, Brian Wahlstrom and Caskitt). Eventually I wandered back in and checked out the last few songs, which I enjoyed more this time around. Also, the pills started to really kick in. 

Oh, I see you've played knifey spooney before

Chumped Andrew Jackson Jihad

Andrew Jackson Jihad got on stage, and now I was seriously confused. Was Chumped headlining for some reason? Whatever, just go with it. This is the 3rd time I have seen AJJ, and at first it was a little jarring to see them play as a full band. They came out and ripped through their set, not playing as many songs off Christmas Island as I thought they would. They were at one point joined by Jeff Rosenstock playing sax on the song You Don't Deserve Yourself , and by members of Chumped and Smith Street Band for the song Big Bird. I'm not the biggest AJJ fan in the world, but every time I see them play I am reminded about how hate filled, brutally honest, and awesome most of their songs are. This is where the church thing came into play though, they didn't have the time to do an encore song because the place was on a strict curfew. Bummer. 

Andrew Jackson Jihad featuring one of the Muppets

Chumped

Turns out, there was some confusion on what time the show started. Facebook said 6. The website said 7. I guess it started at like 6:30, and we fucking missed Chumped. Bummer.

About this time, the hydrocodone started to wear off and I was left with a sore body, headache, and dry mouth. Stupid pills and wine.

All in all, it was a good show. Nothing really super exciting happened, but it also wasn't super boring. I do want to thank Brendan and Julie for buying my ticket and going with me. And I want to say fuck you to that step. Brendan knows which one.