Brand New and Modest Mouse Fill Ascend With Feelings

Oops, they did it again! Brand New secured their position as emo's golden boys by ending yet another Nashville appearance in the most dramatic way possible ... with the promise of inevitable demise. But first, let's talk about opening band co-headliner Modest Mouse. Because when this tour was announced several months ago, it was made very clear by both parties that there was not going to be a headliner, singular — Brand New and Modest Mouse would be sharing that coveted status but taking turns closing out different cities around the country. Brand New headlined the show at Madison Square Garden; Modest Mouse will do the same at both the Seattle and Portland dates. But both would perform full shows each night. Last night, at Ascend Amphitheater, it was Modest Mouse's turn to go first.

The Pacific Northwest stalwarts took the stage while a loud rumbling of bees or race cars or maybe Macklemore's moped gang blasted from the house speakers. As the buzzing blared, the still-growing sold out crowd cheered and the band got to work with little more than coy waves and smiles, starting their show with "The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box" from their 2015 (and most recent) album Strangers to Ourselves. Surely that album title rings true to the core Modest Mouse members. Once a scrappy, sometimes crappy, trio playing hole-in-the-wall clubs in the Seattle area, the band has spent the last couple decades evolving into the accomplished eight-piece orchestra they're known as today.

But even though singer Isaac Brock and fellow original member Jeremiah Green were, for the most part, surrounded by newbies (relatively speaking), they still winked at their past, playing the drowsy, first-album favorite "Dramamine" and Lonesome Crowded West's shiniest, saddest star "Trailer Trash." Though the latter has been a set list mainstay through the band's career, maybe only 10 people standing around us managed to yell out "Fakes!" when Brock sang the appropriate line. Sad! That has long been a favorite moment at MM shows, a shared release of mutual frustration with the world, and soon that magic moment will be extinct.

But the show wasn't ruined — not at all.

After that brief visit to the very early years, Brock brought out the banjo and the band came alive, driving headfirst into a galloping version of "Bukowski," sounding even more like a traveling twisted carnival of yesteryear than usual thanks to a collection of extra percussion like shakers and cabasas. Picking up the pace in the next song, "This Devil's Workday," Brock started yell-singing like a possessed preacher in a backwoods revival tent, showing no concern for the ruptured eardrum he told us about earlier in the evening. It was intense; it was delightful to watch. But that magnetic energy only lasted for one or two more songs. Because just as the band was starting to finally cut loose — hitting an energetic stride a (co-)headlining band might be expected to hit — Modest Mouse pulled back and finished the evening with ho-hum versions of "Blame It on the Tetons" and "Fly Trapped In a Jar."

Despite some glowing moments during their set, it's hard not to place Modest Mouse concretely in "opening band" territory when the set is shorter, the stage setup is less impressive and the sun is still setting. And another nail in the "there's no such thing as co-headlining" argument: Brand New came out hard, armed with blinding strobe lights, video screens and a wall of guitars that shattered any memories of Modest Mouse's less-enthralling performance. Singer Jesse Lacey said, "Hello, we're Brand New," and the band blasted into opening song "Sink." 

Unlike Modest Mouse, Brand New and their wall of amphitheater-appropriate stage decor (including fresh flowers on all the gear — do they have a touring florist? Because that would be a fun job ...), loaded their setlist with the harder, more-recent end of their rock spectrum. In fact, they completely ignored their pop-punk past, playing zero notes from Your Favorite Weapon. Instead, they gave almost equal attention to both The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me and Deja Entendu.

There was crowd-surfing during "Okay I Believe You, but My Tommy Gun Don't," and everyone in the crowd who watched MTV2 in 2003 sang their faces off during "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows." And some couples predictably made out during "Tautou" despite that song being not-at-all romantic. It was a phenomenal performance and they didn't at all look like a band that maybe kind of sort of broke up onstage the last time they were in Music City. And of course there was an encore.

Fans were finally able to catch their breath and/or shake the seizure caused by strobe lights when Lacey appeared, alone, to perform an acoustic version of "Moshi Moshi," an early B-side that, much like Weezer's "Across the Sea," verges on being more creepy than crush-worthy. (OK, "Across the Sea" is 100% more creepy than romantic, the verdict is still out on "Moshi Moshi.") And "Play Crack the Sky" came next. But then the switch flipped — the band had flirted with bombastic proportions earlier in the evening, but then the haunting first few notes of "You Won't Know" rolled in like a storm. The band lost it.

After screaming through another round of the chorus, where it appears that Lacey would rather die than tell a person he loves them, he crumpled to the floor, writhing and started to chant lines from "Tautou" — "I'm sinking like a stone in the sea / I'm burning like a bridge for your body." It was chilling. And it went on for several minutes, to the point where fans in the audience started to look at one another, silently wondering if Lacey was OK. And as dramatic as it was, it still wasn't the band's final act for the evening.

After the musicians walked off the stage and all the lights went dark, the large video screens delivered the hard truth: Brand New 2000-2018. The message was surrounded by three images of upside-down crosses made of flowers. Brand New teased their own funeral. They've got less than two years left. That's br00tal.

"OH NO!" someone nearby shouted out. "What is that?" another questioned, panicked. "Now I'm so sad," cried a woman on her way out of the venue. Of course you are. Because, if you haven't caught on yet, Brand New ain't here to make you feel good.