Floridian pop-rockers Dashboard Confessional are coming to Oshawa for a gig Tuesday Mar 13 at the Music Hall. The band have just released their seventh album 'Crooked Shadows'. Dashboard Confessional has Chris Carrabba at its heart. He has been pouring out his heart onto his sleeve for almost two decades and are very much part of the 00s sound and style tagged Emo.
Its a sound rather than a scene, one based on a sonic connection and not geography. Grunge has its roots in Seattle but Emo may be the first post-Napster scene. On the Net music could be shared quickly and easily between people who shared more than a neighbourhood. They shared values, a sensibility, a worldview and a way of being in the world, they were a tribe without territory. Others in those early years would have been Saves The Day, New Found Glory, the Get Up Kids. Over the years others have joined the tribe and Emo has become a category, like punk.
Dashboard Confessional don't stray too far from their home territory on 'Crooked Shadows'. On the title track, album opener "We Fight" and the track "Be Alright" there's a smoothness to their pop-punk, like skaters who only use the bowl and never the street. Its not unpleasant and its not unlikeable, its pretty and there's room for pretty in this ugly city. There's also always room for a folk song and "Heart Beats Here" does it for me.