Unwritten Law
House of Blues Anaheim
September 12, 2008
I’ve never claimed to have good taste in music. Well, not much anyway. There was a time in my life when all I listened to was Our Lady Peace, the Ataris, and Unwritten Law. Am I ashamed? Maybe a little, but shame will do me no good when I still listen to some of the aforementioned music. I will gladly defend Our Lady Peace and possibly even abashedly stand by the Ataris until someone brings up “Boys of Summer” and I feel silly. I hate to admit it, but I still like a song or two by Unwritten Law.
The first time I saw Unwritten Law live, I went excitedly, still listening to their music often, still thinking they were the coolest, and not knowing what they looked like or what they played like live. This was one of my first shows with Racket Magazine. I was interviewing an opening band and supposedly getting passes to get into the show. Wrong. My previously idolized band had allegedly revoked the passes from all the lesser bands so they could use the passes for themselves. Strike one!
Strike two didn’t come until they had played a couple songs. They didn’t play badly, they were just…boring. Then I noticed Mr. Scott Russo shaking his tushie and clearly all too pleased at the attention he was getting from the packed house. He kept lifting up his shirt for the ladies to see his belly and seemed completely enraptured with the sound of his own voice and with the attention he was getting. Egad, the image has been shattered.
I will not lie, I was sort of hoping that in my second experience seeing the band they’d redeem themselves (I had doubts, especially because of the annoyingly self-assured smirk I kept seeing from Russo, as seen on the inside cover of their latest album Live and Lawless). I went out of nostalgia for the days in which I sat in my corner with my CD player and headphones and tuned everything else out. I knew it would be the same, but I was still excited.
And that’s all what it was- the same. The showboating, the smirks. I mean, I didn’t see his belly quite as often, but in place of that there was eyeliner to look at. There’s not much else to say about the show (I missed the openers, so sorry!). They played, that was it. Aside from the fact that I think I have gotten over a six year phase, there’s not much else to mention. Russo looks a bit older up close, and the bassist, John Bell, still has über long hair. Though the crowd sure does love them (again, it was a very packed house). Maybe they just haven’t been disillusioned yet.
Unwritten Law, I still want that pass you jipped me.
–Caitlin Elgin