Jet

Another weekend, another concert. I think The Joint at The Hard Rock is becoming one of my favorite places to see a concert here. This was supposed to be the weekend I went on my road trip to California to see back-to-back Keane shows. Instead, it was Jet at the Hard Rock. Their new album came out this week, called Shine On. It’s not bad. In some instances it’s different from their first album. It sounds a lot like Oasis, actually. The other thing I realized after seeing them perform live is that they also remind me of The Black Crowes from the Shake Your Moneymaker era (think Hard to Handle).

The opening band was pretty interesting. It was a group from New Zealand called Bloodcat Love. They had a female drummer who was totally awesome. I love watching drummers. To me, they are easily the most interesting people in the band. This was a pretty girl in a pretty dress named Claire. And then she sat down to play the drums. There was nothing pretty about her then. She rocked. The band was good, the music was good, and if you closed your eyes, the lead singer sounded a lot like Michael Hutchence. And, like everyone else these days, Bloodcat Love has a page on MySpace if you want to check them out.

I’ll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about Jet. I have the first album (and now the second) but I couldn’t tell you how many people are in the band, the names of any of them, or even what any of them looked like. And whether you realize it or not, you know at least one if not more of their songs. Their first album, Get Born, was great because it sounded like a back to basics Rock n Roll album. The first single, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” was very catchy and therefore got over played. Having iPod use it in their commercials didn’t hurt. Seeing it performed live though, was worth hearing it one more time. I love hearing that guy scream. I now know “that guy’s” name is Nick. His brother Chris is the drummer.

The other big single for them you may know (and a telling premonition of the second album) was the single, “Look what you’ve done.” More of a ballad, it had that weird video that was animated and made me think of what Bambi on crack might be like. The second album has a lot more of these ballads. Listening to the CD this week, I wondered what the show was going to be like if this was what they were going to play.

I shouldn’t have worried. Actually, as a relatively new fan, I feel pretty lucky. They ended up playing a good number of songs from the first album as well as the faster songs from the new one. I felt like I was getting a 2 for 1 deal. As the concert went on, I realized they played everything the crowd knew from the radio. Normally you think the band is going to hold something big back for the encore, but they had played everything I thought qualified. So when it came time for the encore, out came Oasis. They played a couple of songs from the new album which were a bit slower than the rest of the show. I don’t refer to them as Oasis as a bad comparison; it just seems a bit obvious. And it seemed like a strange way to end such a high-energy show.

Overall, it was a great show. It was also the largest crowd I have seen at The Joint so far. (I totally rocked in my purple glitter eyeliner and black combat boots.) I don’t know that I can flat out recommend buying the second album, but there are some songs that are probably worth the download. One of the best is called “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.” It has the scream. I love the scream. “Bring It On Back” is pretty good and so is “Rip It Up.”