Review: Coheed & Cambria 10.25.2007

#30
Coheed & Cambria
(K-Rock Creep Show)
The Blender Theater at Gramercy
New York, New York

First of all, a huge THANKS is due to Philadelphia Amtrak ticket agent Tim for rebooking my train ticket (since I missed the train I had reserved because driving in the rain is not conducive to making it to Philly in less than four hours) and then actually running down to the track with me to try to get me on the next one and then finally re-booking me on ACELA for free so I would get to NYC by 8pm. Tim is the man!

Also, special thanks to the M23 bus driver who let me go even though my $2 in change only registered $0.75 and to my friend J for joining me for the encore (after having his own subway train fiascos). I think you got your $0.92 worth just from Chris's drum solo. And finally, to the TastyKake bakers for their fine products.

So I figured there was no way I could get tickets to this show, since they were only selling a few online, it was in NYC, and they were $0.92 each but I guess my internet aptitude is just so good these days that I scored two tickets on Ticketmaster for a total of $4.34 (what with the fees and surcharges and all). [Disregarding the fact that I spent $117 on train tickets, $17 on tolls, $20 on parking, $2 on the bus, $7 on beer, $21 on gas and about $7 on coffee and sugar to keep me awake between the Joppatown MD Sheetz and my house.] I still maintain that this was less crazy than my trip to Hamburg (when I didn't even get to see the show). Although it was probably a dangerous discovery that I could, in fact, go see a concert in NYC and come back overnight.

When I first walked in, I almost literally ran into Pete, who is going back out on the road with these guys. I was trying to convince him that we should all go get chili when they play DC. Anyway, the show started around 8:30 and the set was just a little over an hour. I was hoping they would play more new songs, but they only did 'The Running Free' and 'Gravemakers and Gunslingers' (or maybe there was one more?). However, they did do an absolutely fucking killer 'Trooper' with Claudio singing the first verse and Travis the second and almost everyone there actually knew the song (unlike the very first time I saw them do it). They also did Everything Evil, Favor House, IKKSSE, Blood Red Summer, and a fairly definitive Final Cut which included a long exchange with Travis on the talk-box and Claudio yelling into his guitar and a long, long drum solo whereby Chris proved he is the best drummer for the job. Claudio has apparently also begat a new guitar, the logical heir to the double guitar of the last album's tour [here's a photo of Claud's new guitar - excuse my not having gone to Warped Tour in my elderly state...].

I didn't have time to do much after the show - just walk back to the train station and talk on the phone until it was time to go. Not bad, not bad at all.