I attended the Bayside concert last Saturday, and they are incredible live. After enduring the mediocre at best opening bands, Bayside played a perfect set featuring a lot of songs off The Walking Wounded, a few off their self titled and Shudder albums, and their new song Already Gone. They are amazingly talented musicians, and Anthony's voice is possibly even better live than on the albums; he sings with an added energy and plenty of help from the audience. One of my favorite parts was watching their unbelievable guitarist Jack O'Shea shred on the solos. One thing I would have changed about the set was their cover of My Name Is Jonas. While it is fun to see a band do a good cover of a song they like, it would have been more satisfactory to see them play another of their own songs (perhaps I and I or Masterpiece.)I would have loved it if Bayside could have played for the remainder of the concert, but instead their set ended and Senses Fail played next. They played an enjoyable set, but had one problem with their live performance: the vocals. Buddy sounded far better singing the band's newer songs than their older material. I guess he just doesn't have the range he used to, and couldn't hit many of the high notes on songs like The Irony Of Dying On Your Birthday. This is understandable though as it has been about six years since the release of that album, and other than that, they were fun to watch.
-T
