Certainly Not Forgotten

Paper Route's recent EP poses the question, "Are We All Forgotten?" In a weekend where this Phillyist saw six bands—including three of this Phillyist's favorite bands—and Paper Route was the first of those six, it would be easy for the answer to that question to be, "Yep," or at least, "Oh yeah, we did see Paper Route this weekend." But fortunately, Paper Route's set at Festival Pier on Friday night was strong enough that it stuck in our heads, despite seeing some other fantastic performers both Friday night and on Sunday night (which you'll read about tomorrow).

That's not to say Paper Route (MySpace) was perfect. There were points in the set when Paper Route sounded like a Killers cover band. But fortunately, the cover band sound only occurred here and there; it didn't pervade the band's set. What did pervade their set, however, was that a lot of the complexities of the music got lost in air—literally—at Penn's Landing. We suspect that the band would sound a heck of a lot better in an indoor venue, and on a bill that attracts an audience who is willing to give a new, unknown band a listen without a whole lot of jibber-jabber as they impatiently wait for Jack's Mannequin and Paramore to hit the stage.

We got more than what we expected out of Paper Route. They held their own on a bill with three very strong bands, at least as far as performance goes. Sure, Paramore's music is pretty disposable, but they work their asses off to put on a good show. The same can be said for Jack's Mannequin—not the "pretty disposable" part, but the "work their asses off" part. Jack's Mannequin puts out music that is deceptively not disposable, and it's easy to write them off as simply being Something Corporate under a different name, but as Andrew McMahon gets older (and goes through more shit, namely his bout with leukemia), his songwriting steadily improves. And then there's Phantom Planet, who have almost fifteen years of experience in putting on solid live shows under their belt.

Yes, it would be pretty easy for Paper Route to get forgotten in Friday night's lineup, let alone with us also seeing a show on Sunday night featuring two of our favorite bands, The Honorary Title and Paper Rival. Maybe Paper Route wasn't the best band we saw this past weekend, but they certainly held their own. And with the company they were in, that's saying something.

Photo by Josiah Lightle, via Paper Route's official MySpace page.