Red started off the show with a lot of the normal stuff that rock bands do now, jump around, throw guitars over the neck, high-kicks that don’t quite rival David Lee Roth from 1979, but it is fun nonetheless. The thing that I didn’t quite get from Red was the same kind of “fun” feeling you got from older rockers, which is par for the course, so I am not going to single-out Red for this. I am sure their fans have a great time at their shows, because this is what I saw on Friday night.

“Lost” was a good full-sounding rock song that starts out with the heavy, goes to the more in control sound, then kicks in the chorus. It works for Red, they are good at this, but before I spend three more paragraphs on this song or that song, I am going to get to the good stuff quick.

First, the people at Piere’s rock. The staff has friendly people everywhere, smiling and all that stuff. Autumn and Stacy, thank you again for hearing me and my friends talk your ears off while you guys are trying to sell shots. Your patience as I am trying to not buy a shot or if I am, trying to find one of my friends to drink it...thank you.

Second, thank you sound people for getting the sounds on, especially for the headliners. Each time I have seen a band at Piere’s, the sound hasn’t been the issue for the headliner, now for the opener, that might differ due to how much of the PA is available for the opener, but that is par for the course. (Go to any concert anywhere and tell me how many times the opener was better sounding than the headliner, it just doesn’t happen.)

Finally Third: Red, if you do one thing ever again, this is it: write a whole bunch of songs that sound and feel as great as “Breathe Into Me”. That song was amazing live, just amazing. The crowd was so into it, the hook stood up well great live, the guitars and vocals were killer, just killer. This is what I wanted to see live, something with this kind of energy and everybody got it. The rest of the set just couldn’t compare and I don’t say this totally as a negative.

Red appears to be a band with promise, but I think part of what I was missing was the ability for the band to accept the fact that a mistake might sound cool live. They were too perfect and some of my friends at the show, you know what I mean, but for you the reader, just think if you saw a band like, uh, I don’t know, Foo Fighters. If every song sounded as perfect as the record, it wouldn’t be fun, but when you see the Foo Fighters, they jam out a song, kill the great song “Everlong” by making it acoustic, but they do it and damn the critics. I can’t fault Red for their sound, it was perfect, but that made it bland.

Now, on Saturday night; I had another band on my list to see, Nonpoint. Nonpoint is a band that I don’t know much about, other than the “ I gotta Bullet with My Name On It” one that rocks, but much like Red, I was coming into the show without much past experience on what Nonpoint does. Uh, well, this is where Saturday night goes from fun night to amazing night in one paragraph.

Elias Soriano (Vocals), Robb Rivera (Drums), K Bastard (Bass) and Andrew Goldman (Guitars and Vocals) know how to do this live thing to perfection. I was blown away. My buddy Frank that was with me watching the show was blown away and that guy has been to about 200-300 shows in his life, if not more. We went from hanging upstairs watching the crowd look like popcorn exploding in a kettle to hanging on the floor close to the crow with me basically saying “f*** the notes for the review, I want to watch this!” This is what Nonpoint was and is.

Soriano, just mesmerized the crowd, when he jumped, the crowd jumped.  When he clapped mildly, the crowd clapped intensely. When Rivera drummed like a crazy man, with his kit pointing to the left -so you could see what he was doing- it just brought openness to the show that was in every way organic and rocking. This did not come off as forced or cliché, this was a real band rocking to entertain, not just to play the music...to entertain.

Guitarist Andrew Goldman had some great harmonies when it came to background vocals, but his guitar work never suffered because of this, the dude was on. K Bastard (Hey, that’s what the mohawked dude calls himself, what should I call him?) was like a bolt of electricity just going everywhere, but determination came out in his performance. The mixture of the four members made for a constant great sound, which is what you want when you see a show.

I told you I knew “Bullet With a Name” and when the night closed out, this was the final song and I was fine with this, the band had a backbone, they didn’t play to the crowd, they entertained the crowd and came up with a set list that worked for them and myself for that matter, but when it was time for “Bullet With a Name”, we all knew it was time to go, no more, no less and it rocked. “Bullet With a Name” came off with crazy energy, the band, the crowd; we all knew we were getting the best this evening.