Dashboard Confessional

It’s like a Protestant stepping into a Catholic service; sure, you can be there if you want, I mean, they’re not going to turn you away; hell, they’re all good people inside, it’s just that you’re not going to fit in. Amongst the converted, the devotionals, you can only be a non-believer.

But before mass, there’s the warm-up of Ireland-via-Scotland’s Snow Patrol. Having released their previous albums on the Jeepster imprint, the six-piece have stepped up to the big time and released their latest effort on Polydor . Great things are clearly expected. And why not? With enough rawk in their armoury to please the reconstructed-yet-unconverted hardcore kids, Guitarist and vocalist Gary Lightbody and co. win over the crowd easily enough, whilst showing enough guile and goddamn proper tunes like, to possibly hold their attention over repeated listens of the album they no doubt want the emo-loving onlookers to buy. The set is short and not lacking a good wedge of oomph, and while they may pack a bit more indie than the tattooed crew would generally care for, theirs is a bright future. Snow Patrol may just well have landed.

Chris Carrabba let a crater of raw, bloodied human emotions impact upon the western world some time ago, and for Dashboard Confessional, the task is now to consolidate; spreading the gospel further, whilst throwing fresh new tales to already-believers eager to gorge upon them like lions thrown Christians in a Roman coliseum. And to be honest, it’s a fairly amazing scene. The packed-to-the-rafters Astoria is bellowing back each word to the heavily-inscribed frontman with a venom and belief I haven’t seen before. I’ve never seen anything like this. Sure, 100,000 people singing ‘Wonderwall_’ at Knebworth is a mighty acclaim of popular songwriting, but meaningless words thrown into the sky is not akin to this massive emotional bloodletting as people from ages 7-40 (the seven year-old was a particularly unnerving sight) sing these words as if they were a bespoke poem for their lives and troubles. Surely not everyone’s been crushed and burned as badly as CC? But maybe that’s the power of the Dashboard; as Michael Stipe said recently just before playing ‘Losing My Religion’, “this is your song, we just cover it”. Wanky perhaps, but undoubtedly true. The thoughts and feelings of this man have become public property; these are your emotions; he just articulates them.