Rough Draft

Best Live Performance....Ever

Dana and I went to see Yellowcard at the Agora last Thursday and they were simply put: amazing. We were right up front and just inches away from the band the whole night. They had so much energy and you could tell they were having a great time playing. The crowd was jumping and singing along with every song. Ryan crowdsurfed a couple times, Sean did a backflip off one of the speakers during Way Away and again at the end of the show, and Ben held his guitar out into the crowd so everyone nearby (including me :-) ) could strum it.

They had a very good mix of old and new songs in their set. They started off with a couple old ones: For Pete's Sake and Finish Line. After those Ryan said, "Ok, we're going to play a few songs off Ocean Avenue and we want to just rip right though them, so let's rock out nonstop for the next 10-12 minutes." And with that they played Way Away, Breathing, and Ocean Avenue. Then came the best part of the show. A couple people in their crew came on stage with chairs, Ryan grabbed an acoustic guitar and played Empty Apartment and followed that with Rough Draft (one of the most amazing songs ever) which they have never played live until this tour. After that they mixed some more old and new songs together including Sureshot, Star Struck, Only One, Life of a Salesman, and Avondale. After that was the serious part of the show because they played Believe which they wrote about September 11. They left the stage after that, then Ryan came back to play Cigarette and the rest of the band came back throughout the rest of the song. They finished up with October Nights.

At the end of the show Dana got a guitar pick, which she gave to me, and I bought a Yellowcard Ocean Avenue shirt and got Sean to sign my Ocean Avenue CD booklet. Quite a fun night.

I'd just like to say I'm really glad to see these guys being successful. They're a great group of people and they've worked really hard to get where they are today. They started in Florida and then left everything thing behind and moved to California to make their dream of becoming a successful band come true and that's something I can really relate to at this point in my life.