Dashboard Confessional at the Uptown Theater (09-26-24)

Tour Dates

Even with musical labels like Indie, Emo and Acoustic, it was an energetic evening with Dashboard Confessional at the Uptown Theater on a Thursday night that gave fans the opportunity to turn most of the night into a singalong.

Taylor Acorn set the tone early with a rousing set. Acorn packed as much punch into each song, whirling around the stage with a voice that could fill an arena.

“When I was a kid all I ever wanted to do was sing. I sang so much I drove my family crazy, but I didn’t care, I just loved it so much!” So said Talor to Mountain Home Magazine, a regional magazine from her childhood home in south central New York.

By the third song, she took a quick break and admitted, “My voice is going slowly, but surely.” She was a bit under the weather, but not letting it ruin the chance to promote her new album and perhaps personal mantra, Survival in Motion, singing songs from it like “Birds Still Sing” and “Greener” before ending with fan favorites like “Shapeshifting” and “Psycho.”

BOYS LIKE GIRLS was up next and given the opportunity to play a sixty minute-set. They are from Andover, MA and consist of original members Martin Johnson on lead vocals and John Keefe on drums, and joined by Gregory James on bass and Jamel Hawke on lead guitar.

BLG hit it big with their self-titled debut album with the hit “Great Escape.” Then after two more albums, a break, not a break-up, more of a hiatus that lasted over ten years only to return with their latest album SUNDAY AT FOXWOODS with every song in capital letters.

The break must have renewed their spirits for they put on a FUN set of pure ROCK, smoking cigarettes, jumping up and down on raised platforms and constantly flicking their guitar pics into the crowd. Johnson even tossed his lighter and tambourine.

“We will work,” said Johnson. “We will shut up and play the hits and the new stuff,” as they segued into “LANGUAGE.” Then they teased the crowd with the first stanza of their hit song before moving into “Thunder.”

“You are so mean,” shouted a fan behind me. But the person did not have to wait long for “Great Escape” was certainly to be the last song.

After platforms and drop cloths were removed, Dashboard Confessional took the stage. Actually it was just Chris Carrabba on acoustic guitar singing “The Best Deceptions” before the rest of the band joined him with Scott Schoenbeck on bass and keys, Chris Kamrada on drums, Kenny Bridges on guitar, Abigail Kelly on vocals and Armon Jay on lead guitar.

“Lots of young people in the crowd,” said Carrabba, scanning the room. “On a second look, there are probably a lot of babysitters working tonight.”

It was in 2000 that The Swiss Army Romance debuted. By 2002 the band had secured a spot on MTV Unplugged.

Carrabba asked the crowd if they remembered the first time he heard of Dashboard Confessional. He surmised it was either hearing “Vindicated” in Spider Man 2 or “Where There’s Gold” in Gossip Girl. He definitely has one of those voices that is identifiable and connecting, like when he sings it is a personal conversation between him and the listener.

Twenty years after Spider Man 2 and promoting their eighth studio album, All the Truth That I Can Tell, Carrabba had a funny story about now being a dad with a daughter who does not treat him like a rock star. He said that she wanted to go to see a movie because she had just read the novel it’s based on, It Ends with Us.

He was excited to see that his daughter was excited and asked if he could come along.

“No,” was the reply. But upon her return she said she was surprised that one of his songs was in the movie, “Carry This Picture.”

His response? “You listen to my music?”