Race The Sun, Broadside and Patent Pending
Friday, September 10 at the Canal Club
Though Richmond’s own Race The Sun have been around in one form or another for most of the past eight years, their hometown has seemed largely ignorant of them during that time. Even at their most active, they always played to bigger crowds on tour than they ever drew here. They were the classic stereotype of “big in Japan” made real: their lone full-length, The Rest Of Our Lives Is Tonight, made the top 10 on the Japanese Billboard charts. They never quite broke through to that next level in America, though, and the life of a struggling touring band eventually took its toll–stressing them out, straining their finances, and leading to their breakup in 2006. Fortunately, after taking some time away from playing together, this group of longtime friends remembered how much fun it had been in the beginning, and reformed. It’s an occasional thing for them now–band members have wives, children, and careers, and can’t afford to tour or devote full-time energy to the band. But they’ve been practicing, working on new material, and now they’ve returned to the live arena, playing their first show in two years at the Canal Club last Friday night.
Race The Sun, Broadside and Patent Pending
Friday, September 10 at the Canal Club
Though Richmond’s own Race The Sun have been around in one form or another for most of the past eight years, their hometown has seemed largely ignorant of them during that time. Even at their most active, they always played to bigger crowds on tour than they ever drew here. They were the classic stereotype of “big in Japan” made real: their lone full-length, The Rest Of Our Lives Is Tonight, made the top 10 on the Japanese Billboard charts. They never quite broke through to that next level in America, though, and the life of a struggling touring band eventually took its toll–stressing them out, straining their finances, and leading to their breakup in 2006. Fortunately, after taking some time away from playing together, this group of longtime friends remembered how much fun it had been in the beginning, and reformed. It’s an occasional thing for them now–band members have wives, children, and careers, and can’t afford to tour or devote full-time energy to the band. But they’ve been practicing, working on new material, and now they’ve returned to the live arena, playing their first show in two years at the Canal Club last Friday night.
I’m used to being frustrated with bar shows and the late hour of their commencement. Therefore, the early hour at which this all-ages show got going took me by surprise. Six bands were playing, so I understand why things had to get underway as soon as possible, but by the time I got off work at 8, drove over to the Canal Club, and made my way to where the bands were playing, the show was half-over. My apologies to the bands I missed–In Courage, The Half Jeffersons, and Audio Strobelight–but I’ve always liked three-band shows a lot more than longer ones, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.
It is kind of a bummer that the first band I saw was Patent Pending, though. I’ve had a few experiences in my time where I’ve watched a band play music in a genre that I ostensibly liked and thought, “Wait, do I even like this style of music? Have I been kidding myself?” That was my reaction to Patent Pending. They were hitting all the right notes, doing a more than passable recreation of the pop-punk genre, and yet I was unmoved. After a while, I realized that the problem with their version of pop-punk, at least for me, was that it was so studied, so perfect, but still so lacking in passion and soul. The singer mentioned between songs at one point that, when not performing with Patent Pending, he worked as a songwriter for top-40 pop acts, and it seemed both appalling and completely appropriate to me. I know that making one’s living in that way is not an intrinsically dishonorable thing to do, and hey, it sure beats working at the mall, but I can’t imagine how anyone could do that job for very long without having its influence creep into their “real” music. I see a real attention to commercial appeal and “moving units” in certain areas of the pop-punk community circa 2010 (and really for most of the past decade, ever since Jimmy Eat World had a hit record), and maybe it’s my stubbornly-held “punk” roots talking, but to me these kinds of concerns seem invalid. How far can you go in pursuit of the same sales numbers a top-40 act gets before your music is just as bad as theirs is? And what does any of this have to do with punk anyway? The kids stagediving and waving their arms in the air at the command of the singer (another tangent: what’s up with all this arena-rock stage banter? There are 300 kids at the show, not 30,000. Engage with them instead of insulting their intelligence with meaningless chants and applause lines) didn’t care about my problems with Patent Pending, and I don’t want to rain on their good times, but I couldn’t help but think that the day will come when they’ll all look back at the bands they listen to now and cringe. Some of those bands won’t deserve the cringe, but if you ask me, Patent Pending will.
After Patent Pending was finished playing, I was still a bit worried that I’d find the entire show a letdown, but I made my way to the front of the stage for Broadside anyway. As soon as they started playing, I felt a lot better. That was true even despite a roadie running onto the stage as they started their first song and throwing hundreds of promotional postcards into the crowd–which is the kind of promo move that I hate. The music more than made up for it, though, as Broadside departed from the traditional pop-punk sound to explore the more hardcore-influenced pop-punk sound originated by Lifetime and brought out of the underground by early Fall Out Boy. Some places on the internet call it easycore, a genre tag a lot less annoying than some others I’ve run into over the last couple of decades. Broadside doesn’t make much use of the faster tempos a lot of easycore bands work with, but they do have the chunky palm-muted guitar riffing and the melody-infused mid-song breakdowns that are a big part of the genre’s charm. I enjoyed their performance thoroughly, even despite the fact that the sound mix did them no favors. There were even small parts during the set where I’d lose track of the tempo of the song for a few seconds, which shouldn’t happen with a band who writes such straightforward material. Regardless, I’d definitely go see these guys again, and I’m looking forward to them getting a better sound mix next time.
Back at the beginning of this article, when I said that most of the Richmond scene never paid Race The Sun much attention, I might have given the impression that they don’t have that many local fans. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth–the downtown hipster types may not even notice Race The Sun’s existence, but they do have a tight-knit community of fans who wouldn’t miss one of their shows for the world. That crowd was out in force on Friday–as were a great many longtime fans and friends of the band from other cities on the east coast and beyond. Everyone in attendance was united by a love of Race The Sun, and they all went absolutely nuts the second the band hit the stage. As much as I loved their LP when it came out, my periods of active show-going had never matched up with a local Race The Sun show, so this was my first time seeing them. I was amazed and inspired by all of the energy the crowd was giving off. Kids were dancing, stagediving, and singing along like it was the last show they’d ever get to attend. I hadn’t seen anything like it in years–I felt like I was back at Twisters in 1997, watching Inquisition or Avail tear the place up. Race The Sun might not have that iconic status in Richmond scene lore, but they sure have won the hearts of a great many local kids. I freely admit that I was swept right up in the energy, dancing and singing along right there with everybody else. It felt like I didn’t catch my breath until they’d played at least three songs.
A lot of times, when a show has that kind of energy, the band’s performance seems almost beside the point. They might be fucking up changes and missing notes, but as long as they keep the songs going the crowd will make up for any performance deficiencies. Race The Sun did not take advantage of this fact, though, instead rising to the occasion and playing at the top of their game. This was especially clear when they departed from the songs released on their LP to play newer material. Most of the crowd (myself included) was really only familiar with the LP, and therefore the reaction to less familiar songs, while still enthusiastic, was more muted. This gave everyone the opportunity to take a breather and really listen to the music. In terms of both songwriting and performance, these newer songs shone, bringing more complex melodies to the fore while still containing plenty of that punk-fueled energy that’s always set Race The Sun apart from the commercial pop merchants that haunt the fringes of their chosen genre. It seems clear that the new EP the band have in the works, as mentioned by guitarist Jason Sowers on a recent absolutepunk thread, will be just as outstanding as previous releases.
Another thing that their performance of the newer songs made clear was just how much of an asset new bassist James Menefee is to this band. Joining with 4/5 of Race The Sun’s original lineup at the time of their 2008 reunion, Menefee is better known around Richmond as the bassist and vocalist for past local pop-punk greats Funsize and River City High–though, at the Canal Club, surrounded by kids who were probably babes in arms the first time I saw Funsize, I found myself wondering how many of them even remembered those bands. Regardless, James is a secret weapon of sorts for Race The Sun. His harmonized backup vocals on the songs from the LP sounded even better than the original backing tracks on the album, and on a few of the newer songs, it was clear that the band had written parts specifically for James’s voice. Vocalist Daniel Long has always had an unusually high voice, so it’s easy for his parts to mix and harmonize with James’s more standard tenor. I was really impressed with Daniel’s live performance as well. High vocals have become somewhat of a popular thing in recent years, and it’s rare that a band whose vocalist hits tons of high notes in the studio can pull it off live. Usually they either sing in a lower register live, or their voice just cracks all over the place and sounds bad. Neither of these things happened to Daniel; instead, even as he jumped and ran all over the stage, his voice stayed on key, and he hit all the notes with no problem. A lot of people try to pull off high-pitched vocals, but Daniel is the real deal.
I thought for sure that the band would end their set with “460 To Nowhere,” the last song from their LP, which stakes a debatable claim on being “South Bound 95” for the under-23 set. However, even after building the atmosphere in the Canal Club up to a fever pitch, they still had one more song left. The set ending performance of “To Icarus With All Sincerity” nearly brought the place down, with the level of stagedivers rising to cartoonish proportions, and multiple members of opening bands climbing onstage to commandeer the backup vocal mics. By the end of the song, Daniel had been pulled from the stage and was singing from the front row, with guitarist James Henderson leaning over the edge of the stage and playing guitar above the heads of all the kids singing along. As soon as they finished, the place erupted with cries for an encore, only to have their hopes dashed as Jason grabbed a mic and said, “That’s actually all the songs we know.” It’s always good to end on a high note and leave people wanting more, but if they’d had more songs to play, that crowd clearly would have loved to hear them.
Race The Sun will probably never be the sort of active touring band that they once were, and they’ll probably never have another top 10 record in Japan. However, they are sticking around, and will be playing more local shows on at least an occasional basis. If they were finally to receive wider notice here in their hometown, it would definitely be deserved. Where exciting live acts are concerned, you won’t find much better. Next time they play in Richmond, you better believe I’ll be there.
