Review and Photographs by Christa Rae Settle
As soon as the stage crew dropped the cloth that had been covering the giant LED sign of the “M” logo on stage right before The Maine’s set, the crowd roared as they anxiously awaited for the band to appear. The crowd was full of a mix of ages, but the main demographic was teenage girls dressed to perfection and the ones over 18 had lyrics to some of The Maine’s (and a few with This Century’s lyrics) tattooed on their bodies.
Once The Maine took the stage, it was easy to tell why this band has many fans. Along with their meaningful and catchy lyrics, the band performs at a 110% energy level. The members of The Maine bounce around and interact with each other on stage as well as interact with the crowd.
The Maine advertised that they were touring with their friends A Rocket to the Moon, This Century and Brighten. It was clear that these bands were close after noticing that the bands shared members. Brighten’s lead vocalist Justin Richards is also A Rocket to the Moon’s backup vocalist and guitarist. This Century’s keyboardist also acted as The Maine’s keyboardist. And the guitarist of This Century was also the back up guitarist for Brighten.
The Maine performed their most popular hits, as well as new songs from the “Forever Halloween” album that just released on June 4th, 2013.
The Maine setlist:
- Love and Drugs
- Misery
- Inside of You
- We All Roll
- Into Your Arms
- Right Girl
- Happy
- Some Days
- Kennedy Curse
- These Four Words
- Whoever She Is
- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (cover)
- Count Me In
- Like We Did
- We’ll All Be…
A Rocket to the Moon
Seeing A Rocket to the Moon touring with The Maine is really special considering the fact The Maine helped Nick Santino (lead singer and rhythm guitarist of A Rocket to the Moon) form his band back in 2008.
“Dakota”, “Like We Used To”, and “Baby Blue Eyes” are just a few of the songs that A Rocket to the Moon performed. There is a slight noticeable difference between the songs when performed than the recorded songs, their performance seems to be a little more of a twangy rock than alternative. The band also sneaked into their set a couple of brief covers of top 40 hits like “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line and “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus.
This Century
This Century proved to be the second most active band on stage this night. The band performs with lots of energy and the lead singer Joel Kanitz interacts with the crowd a lot, he constantly points to girls in the crowd and sings directly to them. At the end of their set, he jumped into the crowd, holding his microphone into the crowd for them to sing into.
Brighten
Brighten opened the night with their mellow rock songs, proving to be the calmest band at the show. This indie pop band serenaded the crowd with their emotional and undeniably well written love songs, causing many of the couples at the show to sway with the music as they held each other and kissed.
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