Night two at the legendary Fillmore here in San Francisco and the Minneapolis pop-rock quintet Motion City Soundtrack are playing the second half of their brief catalog. I’m not too familiar with the band’s earlier stuff, but they are finishing the night off with their major label power-pop/punk masterpiece My Dinosaur Life which is exactly why I am here.
The band is on tour gearing up for the release of their fifth full-length studio album arriving later this year with career spanning shows playing all four of their albums in their entirety; 2003’s I Am The Movie, 2005’s Commit This To Memory, 2007’s Even If It Kills Me, and 2010’s My Dinosaur Life. The tour is taking place over the course of two nights in seven cities across the U.S. as part of the LG Ones to Watch tour.
There are not very many bands around today that can write songs like MCS and it’s almost as if they are too good for their own good. Their music falls somewhere between Weezer, Fountains of Wayne, Material Issue, and Cheap Trick but somehow they tend to get lapped into the worst genre of music ever invented, emo.
So what do they do? They make a brilliant record for a major label only to release the absolute wrong songs as singles and get lost in the unforgiving dog eat dog world of radio promotion and touring. Tracks such as “A Life Less Ordinary” and “Delirium” should have been feel good summer-time anthems, while the hugely missed opportunity of the universally appealing “Stand Too Close” should have been a crossover smash and the breakthrough this band deserves. Regardless of their past the band have kept their sense of humor intact by issuing the following statement about their departure from Columbia Records.
Dear Children of the Revolution,
After a brief, but intense whirlwind-like love affair, Motion City Soundtrack and Columbia Records have parted ways. Even though America wanted it to work out, much like the marriage of Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon, it just was not in the stars. That being said, neither side holds any sort of ill will toward the other. We each gave it our best shot, but due to the ever changing musical climate, as well as other unforeseeable factors, we both felt that this would be in our best interests. So for now, we go it alone. We have been diligently working on Album #5, which we hope to have in your hands soon. What the future holds for us label-wise is anyone’s guess, but we can promise that there will be an onslaught of new material released and with ever increasing frequency. What we’re trying to say is: Hold on to your hats ladies and gents, for we have not even begun to unleash the true fury that is Motion City Soundtrack!
Thank you for listening and for being a part of our lives.
Justin, Josh, Jesse, Matt, and Tony
So what happens next? I predict their former label Epitaph will step in and welcome them back. It’s a smart business move on the part of both parties and chances are the band’s new record will chart higher than its previous effort which peaked at #16 on the Billboard charts. The bottom line here is this band is nothing short of brilliant. If their new record is even a small step up from their last, then I predict their current dinosaur life will be far from becoming extinct.
Check out all of my photos from the San Francisco show here.
The “4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities” Tour has upcoming dates in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit.
Are you a fan? Are you planning to see the upcoming shows? Join the conversation in the comments below.
