It was a veritable battle of the bands Saturday night with a Box Car Racer punk invasion at Austin Music Hall and the Hoobastank rock show just one block away at La Zona Rosa. About 1,200 eager fans dissed Hoobastank for the lesser-known side project of Blink 182 guitarist Tom Delonge and drummer Travis Barker. With the addition of David Kennedy, from punk band Over My Dead Body, on rhythm guitar and Anthony Celestino on bass, Box Car Racer came into being.
From the moment the band stepped onstage,there was a laid-back nature to the show.
"Hi, we're Box Car Racer, [enter expletive here]-ers," Delonge yelled playfully in his nasal voice.
And then the real fun began.
The band went straight into the show, opening with "All Systems Go," a song about speaking up or getting left behind. The energetic set lasted approximately one hour as they played 12 songs from their self-titled debut album, including their hit first single, "It Feels So."
The band delivered an on-target, lively performance that had the crowd dancing and jumping the entire time. The best thing about watching a concert is seeing that the band onstage is having just as much fun as the audience.
A shirtless, tattoo-clad Parker, arguably one of the best drummers in the music industry, beat emphatically on his drum set while Delonge, with his sticker-laden, red electric guitar in hand stood poised in his trademark fixed position, head tilted to the side of the microphone. At most times, only his right arm was moving, strumming furiously to fast-paced punk licks.
After seeing them in concert, those who think Box Car Racer is just Blink 182 minus Mark Hoppus will find they are sadly mistaken. The energy is the same, yes. The genre of music is the same, yes. But the sound sets this little side project apart from Blink. There's more punk, less pop, more seriousness and less humor in the music - no less humor from the guys themselves, of course.
Delonge threw out jokes left and right between songs. "This song's about memories," Delonge said introducing "There Is." "Memories, not mammories. Not memories of mammories."
There were only two disappointments. The first was that there was no encore. The second - fans who had hoped to be graced with an appearance by Mark Hoppus, who lent his voice to Box Car Racer for the album, had their hopes dashed when the show ended without a guest appearance by the Blink bassist. Jordan Pundik, lead singer of punk band New Found Glory, who also popped up on their debut album, was nowhere to be found. Despite these minor imperfections, the show, with crowd-pumping opening performances by H2O and The Used, went off without a hitch.
Performances like these are what make side projects feel like more than side projects. Many bands have members that branch off and do their own outside things - look at rock band Brad, a side project of Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, or Gwen Stefani's side work with Eve and Moby. Few actually make huge marks on the mainstream industry (i.e. all of the Spice Girls), but at the rate Box Car Racer is going, it looks as if they will be around for more than just a while.
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