Show Review: Needtobreathe/Serena Ryder/The Alternate Routes
Needtobreathe w/ Serena Ryder & The Alternate Routes
Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco, CA 10/22/09:
Karma was on my side tonight.
Throughout the past week I have managed to get friends and co-workers into shows I was working for San Francisco’s Live 105 (KITS) like the San Francisco debut of The Temper Trap, Brand New w/ Manchester orchestra in San Jose, Treasure Island Music Festival & Weezer’s secret Myspace show, now tonight, as I finally prepared to hand over my $15 for Needtobreathe’s first show in San Francisco in over 3 years, the man in line in front of me just happened to have a +1 he wasn’t going to use.
I got myself an unexpected free show, and it was a good one.
The Alternate Routes took the stage promptly at 8 o’clock to a half-empty room. With only 3 of the 5 members present, I wasn’t sure what kind of set we were going to get, especially after opening with an acoustic version of “Aftermath” from their old album “Good and Reckless and True”.
They plugged things in and turned things up and busted out some new songs and some old jams, set list:
Aftermath (Acoustic)
Rainbow Speaker
Toe The Line
The Future’s Nothing New
On and On We Whisper
Asked You Twice
Lead singer Tim Warren got the crowd involved rather easily and the band managed to have the room filled up by the end of their set. They left to one of the louder ovations I’ve heard for an opening band in the past few months.
Next up was Atlantic Records singer/songwriter Serena Ryder who only continued the night of fantastic voices.
A singer who can easily appeal to fans of Alanis Morissette, Michelle Branch, Toby Lightman, Vedera, and other female fronted bands, she won the crowd over quickly with an accapella song called “Melancholy Blue” followed by some songs from her upcoming album, “Is It Ok?” and a snippet of rapping into TLC’s “Waterfalls”.
Serena has a great voice on her, and had people lining up to get her CDs for whatever price they were willing to pay, seriously, just put money in a bucket and get a CD. Not bad.
Next up was the night’s headliner, Needtobreathe.
Making their first trip back to San Fran since a show 3 years ago at the same venue where they were direct support for the now defunct October Fall. Frontman Bear Rinehart acknowledged their absence over the past few years and mentioned a few times that it was nice to be playing a show at Cafe Du Nord, “to more than 17 people.”
I went into the show without being completely sold on the new album, “The Outsiders”, so I was hoping we’d get a fair mix of old & new stuff, what we got, however, wasn’t surprising. The new tracks did dominate the set, with some of “The Heat” sprinkled in.
Set List:
The Outsiders
Streets Of Gold
More Time
Sweet Talk
Stones Under Rushing Water (W/ Serena Ryder)
Prisoner
Girl Named Tennessee
(A rockin track that I was not familiar with)
Lay ‘em Down
I Won’t Turn Back (Bo on vocals)
Washed By The Water
Let Us Love
Something Beautiful (unplugged)
Shine On (unplugged)
The new songs they played were the ones I’ve already grown to love, and they were all a lot of fun to hear live for the first time.
Bear said it was the first time they played “Shine On” in about a year, so it was nice to get at least 1 track from “Daylight”, I thought an encore might include some more old tracks, but they didn’t come back out after the unplugged set.
Overall, a great group of acts and a damn fine show.
Props to the fans who were so supportive of the openers, I got tired of hearing “YOU SUCK!” & “WEEZER!” at last night’s show. They also managed to stay quiet during the final 2 songs of the set where the band wasn’t even using a microphone.
Hopefully Needtobreathe makes their way back to San Francisco in less than 3 years and brings along the same type of quality acts that won over the crowd at this show.
Show seen & reviewed by Dallas Osborn
Tags: needtobreathe, serena ryder
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I’ve seen the Routes a few times, they always end their set with “Asked you Twice” and its the best song to end with. They’re awesome at getting the crowd involved in their live show. Great review.