UC Irvine Show Review Pt. 1

When: November 27, 2007
Where: UC Irvine's Bren Events Center
Who: rock bands Switchfoot, Relient K, and Ruth

My show experience began long before the actual show; it began with the sad disappointment of finding the floor tickets for the Bren Events Center in UCI all sold out. And this happening just two or three days of pre-sale closing! I consider this one of those “beautiful letdown” moments; Although I was bummed at missing out on floor seats, I was pretty stoked that tickets were selling out that fast! After overcoming the initial despair and said letdown, I quickly accosted my mom, and we got ourselves tickets for section 120. Little did I know that we had acquired seats in the uppermost row, the “nosebleeds” of UCI’s Bren Events Center. Since this was a relatively small basketball gym however, it wasn’t too much of a problem. I recruited my good friend Jason to come with me to the show, and his mom finally said yes. So we were off!

We got to Bren at around 6:30ish, and we wandered around, and I bought the bootleg/tour program thing, and finally got the Photobook. Needless to say, it’s awesome. I’m sorry… it really is…

7:00 came, and Ruth took the stage for a solid 4-song set. The only song I knew by them is “You Are,” but the rest were pretty solid too. I think they’ll do well in the future. At this point, the floor area was looking about half-full…


After the usual stagework in between sets, Relient K took the stage, to less-than-thunderous applause. I was surprised at how little of the people there actually knew any of their songs. I mean, this was the band that was on MTV a few years ago. Then I realized that the culprit could verily be our Orange County Christian radio station, KFSH, who happens to never play Relient K, and only play Switchfoot’s older material sporadically. They’re playlist consists of 10-year old Christian songs and regurgitated tunes from days past. Anyways, that’s my theory. Enough on that.

Relient K did put on a pretty sweet show, with Matt Thiessen consistently switching between keys and Guitar. The set started with “I So Hate Consequences,” with the primal intro “I’m good good good to go! I’m good good good to go…!” They blazed quickly through some of their other songs, including 2005’s hit “Be My Escape” and even covered “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears before segueing into their own 80’s inspired tune, “In Love With the 80’s.” At some point, the lights went out, and the stage crew brought out an inflatable igloo, all while “Christmas Time Is Here” was playing in the background. Interesting, but painfully cheesy. Once the new igloo was set up, Thiessen heartily greeted the new inflatable polar bear sitting next to the igloo, then introduced the tune “Sleigh Ride” off the band’s brand new “Let It Snow…Let It Reindeer” Christmas record. To top this off, the stage rafters began spraying out “snow.” Yes, it does snow in California!

Another highlight was when the band called up three fans to play the last part of their dance floor hit “Sadie Hawkins Dance.” It was something special to see, and probably was the most awesome time for those three fans, one playing guitar, the other two playing percussion. Once this was over, the band played one more, their big 2006 hit “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been,” and it was time for Switchfoot…

to be continued...

Edit: Go here for Pt. 2 of this review