Degaussed: On Seeing Brand New Seven Years Apart

In 2009, Brand New’s Daisy Fall Tour came through Richmond, and I put up the $28 to go see them.

I was 18, a freshman, and $28 was a small fortune as far as I was concerned, but I hardly thought twice about going. It was Brand-fucking-New. I was on the back end of my most angst-filled years. I had to go. “I’ll just drink 40oz’s for a few weekends to save the money,” I thought to myself, thinking this was the pinnacle of economic planning.

The afternoon of the show, I walked from my dorm to The National, determined to get a good spot in the crowd. We wound up pinned to the front gating that divided the stage from the crowd, front and center — i.e. the best seat in the house. I knew we had quite a wait ahead of us until Brand New would go on, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to relinquish my spot to run to the loo or get some water. So we waited.

Thrice’s set felt like it dragged on forever (and that’s not a knock on Thrice, they’re just not who we were there for), and my entire body ached by the time Jesse Lacey walked on stage, but it was all soon forgotten. My post-pubescent brain couldn’t handle being so close to the band whose work shaped so much of my youth, the people who wrote the songs which accompanied every breakup I’d ever gone through (still true!).

We sang along to all the words, screaming through You Won’t Know and crying through Play Crack The Sky. My ears rang for so many days after the show that I googled tinnitus and freaked out when I read that it could be permanent.

Last Thursday, seven years later exactly, I went up to Fairfax with two of my best friends to see Brand New.

Instead of packing in early, this time we went for drinks and waited to go in. I stayed in the back of the crowd, thinking that there was probably some 18-year-old twerp who deserved that front spot more this time around. We sang along and watched as Brand New played “The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me” in full, the album for which the 10 year tour is being held.

It was a dark show because the album is dark. It was sad because the album is sad. TDAGARIM is a masterpiece and the show was masterful and it was worth every penny, every second of sleep lost, all the times my voice has since cracked (just as it did in 2009) after having sung my heart out Thursday night. They were just thresholds crossed on the way to more memories tethered to Brand New.

Brand New were and still are ethereal to me, as are all the musicians of my youth. I’ve held them close as I’ve moved through my 20’s, and listening to them is always cathartic, a way of jumping in a time machine and going back to my halcyon teenage years.

There’s a mixed excitement that comes with seeing tour announcements for the 10-year anniversaries of my favorite albums. I guess it means I’m growing up but my best friends and favorite artists are still there for me. I’m pretty damn lucky to have that in my life.