Live Rewind: Lifehouse at The Fillmore, 1.19.06

Spring semester of 2006, I invited my friend Bea to her first-ever rock concert post after spring training for my RA job wrapped up. Bea loves the music of Mariah Carey, so when it came to rock or alternative, it was a whole new world that I loved bringing to her. So it was great to start off the semester by seeing one of my favorite rock bands Lifehouse in concert at the Fillmore on January 19, 2006. Although I liked their massive first hit "Hanging By A Moment", it wasn't until I listened to their second major album Stanley Climbfall that I became a true fan, since it was one of the few albums I religiously played all the time and thoroughly enjoyed song by song.

This was my first concert at The Fillmore on Geary and the venue is slightly larger than The Great American Music Hall and smaller than the Warfield. It was at this concert, I was still able to feel close to the band, yet there were more people enjoying the music. Lifehouse was supported by a funky singer-songwriter named MoZella who among her brief set performed a song called "Amnesia". Lifehouse came out and immediately started playing songs from their most recent self-titled album such as "Blind", "Spin", and "You & Me".

Concert experiences are very interesting, because they never are the same. In this case, I remember Bea pointing a couple who was displaying PDA prior to the opening and a rush of people pushing to the front. Although I could do without the pushing and the unnecessary tension caused by such, and knock on wood I have not dealt with issues inovlving body odor, I prefer standing during concerts than sitting. And here we were, singing along to hits like "Take Me Away" or the fantastic "Sick Cycle Carousel". The performance that gave me goosebumps was for the song "Everything", where frontman Jason Wade plows through that power ballad with a lot of heart.

With the amps at full blast, every person was at their feet jumping, singing, and screaming in unison to the words of "Hanging By A Moment" during the final encore. It is truly difficult to describe how I felt at that moment. It was simply a pure high. I had a great time that night.