Brand New - Music Hall of Williamsburg, 7/11/09

I hadn't exactly realized at the time that I managed to get them on TicketMaster exactly how hot the tickets to Brand New's first show in forever in New York were, but there were (probably untrue) rumors that at least one single ticket (thanks to the will-call only policy that all bands who wish to dampen scalper activity should implement) went for close to $1000. Absense, as my companion last night pointed out, makes the heart grow fonder, and for many more fans in New York than the Music Hall of Williamsburg can hold, it has been a very, very long time.

For those lucky enough to have been inside, the show was anything but the experimental run through a bunch of new material that at least this intrepid blogger expected. There were, in fact, only 3 new songs performed from the forthcoming Daisy, which is slated for a September 22 release. I only got the name to one of them: "Bone Dry."

What follows is the rest of the setlist, from what I can remember. Students of psychology are sure to be familiar of the effects of primacy and recency on memory, especially for remembering things in order. Add a few beers to that, and this is what you get:

1. Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't
2. Sic Transit Gloria, Glory Fades
3. The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows
4. The Shower Scene

...and then the best I can recall from the rest of the show minus the 3 new songs mentioned above, in no particular order:

- Jaws Theme Swimming
- Mix Tape
- Jude Law and a Semester Abroad
- Seventy Times 7
- Guernica
- Sowing Season
- Jesus Christ
- Flying at Tree Level (Version 1.0) (note: this was awesome)
- Archers
- You Won't Know
- Degausser

...and then the epic 1-2 punch finale:

19. Play Crack the Sky
20. Soco Amaretto Lime

So...wow, right? Add in there 3 new songs, 2 of which I thought were rad and one more I thought could be rad, and we're talking a fan's wet dream.

A few more things I've been thinking about since:

I love when bands just use all their set time on their set, and don't bother with the pageantry of an encore. If ever there was a time that a crowd would have screamed themselves hoarse for a real encore, this was it, but still the band took the road less traveled, and I thought that was cool.

Last time I saw Brand New, Jesse pretty clearly didn't even want to play Jude Law. It's nice to see the band (at least last night) playing that which they know their fans wanted. Like I said above, I had actually been excited for a whole bunch of new songs, but this was clearly a setlist designed to be a crowd pleaser, and please it did.

I think the crowd sorta botched the singalong during Soco Amaretto Lime a bit. That was still just as good a way to end a show as it was in 2001 though.

EDIT: there's a setlist posted here. The song I thought was called "Bone Dry" might actually be called "Bought a Bride"? I dunno, maybe. What am I, a reliable source for facts and information?