photo credit: weworemasks

I might’ve jumped the gun when I ballooned up The Gaslight Anthem show last week. It just so happens that Alkaline Trio is exactly the same type of band, with the same type of effect between my friends and our respective circles — to an even bigger extent. After all, Alkaline Trio are one of those bands that have been releasing music (now on their 8th studio album, My Shame is True) throughout every phase of punk rock that’s been moderately popular in the 2000s.

Throughout the years, both Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano have broken off and meddled in other bands (Heavens, Dan Andriano solo, etc) but their anchor has always been firmly planted in Chicago’s Alkaline Trio, who brought their new album, Bayside and Off With Their Heads to the House of Blues on Friday night.

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photo credit: weworemasks

Off With Their Heads performed an energetic set, full of gnarl and snarl to make any fans of heated vocals that would make Oscar the Grouch proud. Bayside played their set to a packed house who treated them as headliners. And for a band that has been around since 2003 and were compared to bands like Alkaline Trio and Smoking Popes for a large chunk of their career, they’ve surely come a long way. They haven’t exactly changed many setlists in the past few years, but most see no problem with that when singing along to tracks like “The Walking Wounded” and “Devotion and Desire.”

photo credit: weworemasks

Alkaline Trio’s newest album, My Shame is True, is a bit darker than their past two albums, with much of the subject matter dealing with a recent breakup in Skiba’s life. Yet, despite the turmoil, Skiba was in high spirits, hitting the stage in a beautiful, crisp new Cowboy hat to put a little personalization into the Houston headline set. And yes, he wore the hat the entire hour and thirty minute set.

If you’ve ever seen an Alklaine Trio set, you’re well aware of the fact that they have a somewhat revolving arsenal of tracks. I mean, If you told me that I’d be hearing two tracks from Good Mourning (my personal favorite of their’s) that I had never seen the band perform in about 10 performances before, I wouldn’t have believed you, yet we were treated with “Donner Party” and “If We Never Go Inside.”

Much like they do on wax, Skiba and Andriano’s on-stage chemistry when they take turns being the frontman is a thing of beauty – you take for granted that you have two gifted singers and two gifted songwriters who command the band in their own way, often splitting fanbases (in a friendly competition sort of way) and subsequent fan favorites. Both sides got their own respective gems with “Hell Yes,” “Crawl,” “Mr. Chainsaw” and “Blue Carolina,” reeling in the glory days of From Here to Infirmary as well.

The Trio are just one of those bands that will always take you back to a place of nostalgia and have you arm in arm with your buddies, neck deep in $10 beers and whiskeys, putting together distinct memories for you to go home with. To use a real life example, a couple who had met at the last Alkaline Trio show in Houston found themselves smack dab in the middle of a good ol’ fashioned wedding proposal.

Yeah, we saw a couple get engaged at an Alkaline Trio show.

[ALKALINE TRIO SETLIST]

She Lied to the FBI
Hell Yes
Mercy Me
If We Never Go Inside
Donner Party
I’m Only Here To Disappoint
Olde English
San Francisco
I Wanna Be A Warhol
Sadie
Trucks and Trains
Blue Carolina
The Temptation of St. Anthony
Mr. Chainsaw
Crawl
Young Lovers
This Could Be Love
–
Cringe
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