Piano pop hooligans Something Corporate¹ have announced a 20-date U.S. reunion tour in support of their recently released greatest hits album, Played In Space: The Best of Something Corporate.
The band is playing together for the first time in six years following a hiatus. Lead singer Andrew McMahon blurbed about the reunion on Something Corporate’s website: “The beauty of this reunion is that we waited until we were ready. There is such a good vibe going between all of us and getting to play these songs again has been a true joy… I think we’re all fired up to get back into the clubs and theatres — where we really cut our teeth for the first time.” Hopefully we will meet like on the road at the end of this summer.
Tickets for the trek are now available via Ticketmaster.com.
Something Corporate 2010 Tour Dates:
08/02 – Minneapolis, MN -@ Cabooze Plaza
08/03 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
08/04 – St Louis, MO @ The Pageant
08/06 – Detroit, MI @ Fillmore
08/07 – Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
08/08 – Philadelphia, PA – Great Plaza @ Penn’s Landing
08/10 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
08/11 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
08/12 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
08/13 – New York, NY @ Roseland
08/15 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
08/16 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
08/18 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
08/19 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
08/21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
08/22 : Phoenix, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
08/24 – San Francisco, CA @ Warfield
08/27 – Anaheim, CA @ The Grove
08/28 – Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia
¹If, perchance, it may seem incongruous to you that we’re covering news about a band like Something Corporate, let me propose a brief, and optional, editorial explaining why they are indeed relevant and why they may make you call your ex-girlfriend/-boyfriend.
If I were at a hazard to guess, I would say that if you were born between the years of 1983 -1987, you have some serious musical skeletons in your closet in the form of the first wave of pop-punk-whatever-emo that came into vogue in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Something Corporate accounted for one of the many bands that I fell hook, line, and sinker for during this time, due in no small part to the sky falling down because my high school girlfriend just broke the hell out of my heart. So I turned to the music of Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, et al. for guidance on how to get my 17-year-old Chicken Little maudlin emotions in a fucking row. I loved these bands in a the way that only a 17-year-old Chicken Little maudlin kid could: with every corner of my heart and soul. They “got me” like no one else did, and in these bands I found empathy, agency, and an outlet for teenage heartbreak.
But, alas, we all get older, and just like I’ve gotten over my first girlfriend, so did I those bands. The lyrics make me cringe now, much the same way thinking about some of the things I said to my pubescent romances makes me cringe. We laugh when we read aloud the poetry of New Found Glory, and we’ll put a Dashboard song on at a party as an ironic gibe for our friends to laugh at. We scoff at the naiveté of our first love and the utter simplicity of it all. Our tastes have matured, both musically and romantically, and we tell everyone who asks, “I’ve moved on.”
My personal poet laureate, Craig Finn, assured me that “certain songs, they get so scratched into our souls”. This little saw has been swimming through my mind since Something Corporate released their greatest hits album last month. One of these songs that got so scratched –in retrospect, not unlike nails on a chalkboard—into my soul would happen to be Something Corporate’s “Walking By”: a little piano ballad off an EP about unfinished anecdotes and unrequited love, sweeping and melodramatic, and most certainly a tear-jerker if you want it to be. Again, in hindsight, it’s downright silly and embarrassing, as I’m sure it’s embarrassing to admit that I wrote a poem to my first girlfriend about my apprehensions regarding french kissing herª. But somehow “Walking By” dug roots and took up residence in me for all time.
So picture this: It’s 2010. You’re in your room, hanging out with to your mature, newer, hipper, more attractive lovers like The Hold Steady, LCD Soundsystem, Panda Bear, The National, et al. Even that college love — what’s their name, Radiohead, who you talk to all the time and are really amiable with and whose wedding you will probably attend — is there with you, straight cold lamping and shootin’ the breeze.
Then the phone rings. It’s them, your first one, him/her, announcing a fucking reunion tour, asking you to see if you want to give it another go around. You’re shocked, appalled, a little embarrassed for the party on the other end of the line. At first blush, it’s so pathetic, this sad attempt to get some attention from you. But you hear that voice, that familiarity, the nostalgia and it suddenly all comes rushing back and you can’t help but want to meet for coffee, maybe go to a club. Not that you’re really expecting anything serious to happen, but the thought of seeing them flutters your heart a bit. Maybe you never grew out of them after all…
Extremely long-winded metaphor notwithstanding, Something Corporate may not have this effect on everyone. In fact, I guarantee I’m in the serious minority here. But I submit that everyone has that band/that girl/that guy, and while I may have permanently altered whatever little cred I had as a music writer by admitting I used to really adore Something Corporate, I challenge you to go back and listen to something embarrassing from middle/high school. Find something close to the vest, a song that carries with it, for better or for worse, the memory of times far more innocent and simplistic, even if it happens to be the Boyz II Men/Maria Cary duet One Sweet Day.
Once you have, then, and only then, go back to waiting for the new Arcade Fire LP to call. For that could be The One.
ª I believe the last stanza went something like, “I’ve never french kissed before/who knows if we do it right/but I’ll be looking forward to exploring your tongue/this Friday night.”
