Who?: Titus Andronicus
Where?: Vintage Vinyl Records, Fords, NJ
When?: March 8th, 2010
This past Saturday night, Titus Andronicus played their first show in New York, New York for their cleverly titled “Monitour” that’s taking them all across the country. Before setting out for the rest of the tour, they played one more date in their home state of New Jersey last night. It was in a huge record store called Vintage Vinyl. The store had a gigantic selection of records, specializing in hardcore, punk and metal, and they even had a stage set up in the back of the store for the band to play on. Cool. To get into the show the record store required you to buy the new Titus Andronicus album “The Monitor”, which my friends and I gladly purchased in order to attend. The show promptly started at 8pm, and by the time it started, it also seemed like it was over that fast. They played about 40 minutes worth of material for us, and luckily for you all, I have all 40 minutes of it. Or however long it is.
A More Perfect Union – First track off the new album. First song of the night. Makes sense right? Notice how he says “So long Jersey” in the beginning. They’re not going to be back until late April, so they better make it a good last night!
Richard II – Followed up with the fourth track from the album. This song is definitely displaying hatred towards someone…or something. I’m not entirely sure, but with lyrics like “And at the end of the day/ to whatever extent that you hate yourself/ it isn’t enough”, something is definitely not right.
Four Score and Seven – This was the first song of the night that used the electric violin, and this is also the single from the new album, so we were kind of guaranteed to hear this song if you’re asking me. About 2 minutes in Amy nails her violin part before the big break down. It’s always going to be us against them in this song.
No Future Part Three: Escape from No Future – The continuation of the “No Future” songs from their first record “The Airing of Grievances”. Somebody is definitely bound to always be a loser, no matter how hard they try. We were wondering after the show if there would ever part a No Future Part Four? I guess maybe we’ll find that out someday in the future…if there is one. Oh snap!
Titus Andronicus – This song totally caught me off guard last night. I didn’t think we were going to hear anything from the first album. Patrick made a joke before starting the song that the record store we were in probably didn’t even have a copy of the first album. It’s entertaining to watch Patrick sing in this one. Your life is over!
The Battle of Hampton Roads – Yes, they played the song from their new album that is fourteen minutes long. I had to split the video up into two parts. By the time they started this song the tape in my camcorder only had about fourteen minutes remaining to record, so I delayed my recording for a minute in the beginning of the song. Sorry about that. It turns out that this wasn’t their last song either.
John Brown’s Body & Titus Andronicus Forever…and Ever! – They started playing this one immediately after “The Battle of Hampton Roads”, so I was waiting for my tape to end on me at anyyy second. They went from the American folk song “John Brown’s Body” into the theme from the Monitor, “Titus Andronicus Forever”. The end of this video was also the end of my tape, and what perfect timing it was.
After their set the band hung around for a bit to sign everyone’s new copy of “the Monitor”. Kind of funny that they’re going to write all over their brand new masterpiece that they worked so hard on for so long, but it was fun and everyone got to talk to the band for a minute. Good times. I hope the rest of their tour goes as well as last night went, because they have plenty of dates ahead of them.
Before leaving town my crew and I decided we were hungry, and we had noticed our travels had brought us past the famously hyped “White Castle” that everybody knows of because of this movie. I must say, I was not impressed. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll never go to a White Castle again. If you’ve never been to a White Castle and you’re interested in trying it, I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s just awful. I repeat, it’s just awful. Thanks, and check back again tomorrow.
Titus Andronicus on Myspace
BUY THE MONITOR! DO IT!!! I recommend the beautiful, gatefold, double LP.
An awesome Titus Andronicus Fan Site
Styrofoam Drone 
Thanks to you I can get the feeling like I was actually there, since I physically couldn’t. AHH, THANKS ZAC!!
And White Castle rocks! (The burgers kind of suck sometimes, though). Hahaha