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SOUND CHECK: Season for treasures

With Halloween approaching and next Monday’s Rise Against, Alkaline Trio, Thrice and The Gaslight Anthem show at Verzion Wireless Theater, what better way to celebrate than with The Show Must Go Off: Alkaline Trio, Halloween at the Metro?

The live set was filmed Halloween, 2002 at The Metro in Chicago. The fine folks at Kung Fu Records put out the DVD, and Mike Park’s Asian Man Records also assisted in the festivities. Alkaline Trio dressed the part in the garb of ghoulish priests and opening with the appropriate "Hell Yes."

The rest of the set is a fanboy’s dream with longtime crowd favorites like "Maybe I’ll Catch Fire," "Take Lots With Alcohol," "Cringe," "Tuck Me In," "Crawl," "Private Eye" and too many more to mention.

As far as the musical performance, Alkaline Trio played dead on (no pun intended). It was a memorable show, right in its eerie element and in front of the hometown crowd. Matt Skiba looked like an undead version of Greenday’s Billie Joe Armstrong commanding the crowd, while Dan Adriano complemented by sounding like a morbid version of Morrissey.

A magical set aside, those in attendance that night were also treated to a free seven-inch record limited to only 3,000 copies.

The Alkaline Trio Halloween 7" features the band covering two Misfits classics, "Halloween" and "Children in Heat." If you happen to have this vinyl rarity consider yourself a lucky fan, since the record goes for more than $100 on eBay.

Imagine being able to go back to 2002 to this show at The Metro seeing Alkaline Trio playing some of its oldest and beloved material. Anyone have a time machine handy? A lot of us would love to "… remember Halloween."

Mike Damante

Band DVDs are usually a hit or miss. When it comes to bands like Underoath, which has put out several DVDs, most of them are pretty boring, and are usually recycled material of the same stuff you could find on any Wikipedia site. However, Thrice’s If We Could Only See Us Now is one of the best DVD releases for any band and any genre.

If We Could Only See Us Now has everything a band DVD should have. On the DVD, there is a retrospective that spans the entire history of Thrice. With a running time of above two hours, the audience can really get a grasp on Thrice. The members of Thrice seem to be straight-no-chaser type guys, but the retrospective really shows how the members come together as a unit, along with their hilarious quips to keep you entertained along the way.

For a band that doesn’t seem to have much of a personality outside of making music, the DVD sheds light in every aspect on all of the members of Thrice. You will soon discover that drummer Riley Breckenridge is a 15-year-old trapped in an adult’s body and how extremely nerdy guitarist Teppei Teranishi and lead singer Dustin Kensrue are.

The DVD also features every music video Thrice made preceding the release, along with nine live songs from various locations. The live videos included everything from a rework of "So Strange I Remember You" and even a cover of The Beatles’ "Eleanor Rigby."

And if that wasn’t reason enough, the package also includes a CD that features some of the songs found on the DVD, as well as B-sides and rarities from The Artist in the Ambulance and Illusion of Safety sessions, as well as rare acoustic songs. Basically, If We Could Only See Us Now is a must-have for any fan of Thrice.

Be sure to catch Thrice on tour on Monday, Oct. 27 at Verzion Wireless Theater alongside Alkaline Trio, The Gaslight Anthem and Rise Against.

Roshan Bhatt

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