there’s nothing new about regretting how you felt…
embrace – live at the crocodile cafe 16 june, 2005
last night, jana and i had the pleasure of seeing one of our favorite bands, embrace at the crocodile cafe in seattle. for the uninitiated, embrace are one of the best bands to come out of the jolly old u.k. since the beatles. how coldplay has made it so much bigger in the states than embrace escapes me. embrace are the reigning champions of the epic, stadium swaying mega anthem. lyrically, it seems as if every line from every song could be its own song title. “there’s nothing you’ve got i want”, “we tried for so long to reach eleven on a scale of one to ten”, and “learning how to live with how it feels” are all lines taken from the same song that could have just as easily been the title. they went with “dry kids”. killer song.
seeing them in a quaint little cafe with maybe 150 or 200 other people was definitely cool. it reminded me of when we got to see coldplay at the mayan in los angeles as they were about to make their break into the states. but still, even as i was hearing the songs that i’ve come to love, i couldn’t help but think that these songs were made to be heard in a stadium. their music is totally stadium rock, that hurdle notwithstanding, they put on an incredible live show. they mostly played songs from their new album, out of nothing (available in stores now!), which is incredible.
for those of you wishing to give the band a try, i would start with their first album, the good will out. start to finish, it’s amazing. their second album, drawn from memory, faltered a bit in my opinion. they seemed to forget what they were good at. but maybe i just need to listen to it more. by the third album, if you’ve never been, they were back in fine form and put out an album that we’d all been hoping for.
check out their website, embrace.co.uk to see if they’re playing any shows in your area. i can promise you that you won’t regret taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to see this band. first of all, i predict that if you don’t see them now, by the time that you are in love with them, everyone will be and they’ll be playing the u.s. stadium circuit as they already are in england. don’t miss this chance. the second time that jana and i got to see coldplay was at the hollywood bowl. i can promise that seeing them at the mayan was a much better experience. so, see embrace now while you still can without having to make your way down an aisle to seat 79 in row KK. but i can tell you that when they do come to town 2 years from now and the only ticket that i can buy is seat 79 in row KK, i will gladly make that purchase.
below are some pictures and the song that they closed the show with. well, the album version anyway.
[audio:Embrace-TheGoodWillOut.mp3]
