Issue II - East Meadow School District

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT5As of recent times, the AP Tour has beenknown to bring about the rising stars in moreof the ‘pop-rock’ genre, but not this timearound. This year’s lineup however, was destinedto bring out the biggest of mosh pits,the heaviest of breakdowns, and an overallfun night (if you’re into waking up the nextPhoto courtesy of Alexa Spielerday with bruises and not knowing the originof them). Hosted at New York City’s ownBest Buy Theater, the heart of Times Squarewas rocked by This Is Hell, Polar Bear Club,Emarosa, and co-headliners August BurnsRed and Bring Me the Horizon.I could focus on the first two acts foryou, but to be honest there wasn’t much that‘stood out’ in This Is Hell and Polar BearClub’s set. This Is Hell definitely had energy,seeing as though it was their hometown show(or should I say home-state), but I think everyonein that venue agrees with me on thefact that they could have lived without theirset. Polar Bear Club was decent, and I’msure they had fans there for them, but nothingtruly captured me.Now that we’ve gottento the point on theirsets, let’s head over toEmarosa.Emarosa, whereto begin, where to begin?My first encounterof the night withEmarosa started whenI was downstairs inthe venue, and JonnyCraig (lead vocalist)asked me where thegreen room was, andI directed him to it,and he followed witha “Thank you, ladies!”To be honest, priorto the AP Tour, I hadvaguely heard of Emarosaand had listenedto them a small number of times, but boy wasI blown away. Never have I ever heard sucha beautiful, soothing voice as Jonny Craig’s.Hearing Emarosa’s set was a nice calm beforethe storm, just because the two heaviestbands, August Burns Red and Bring Me TheHorizon, were on after. Jonny Craig singswith such passion and soulfulness that you’reimmediately drawn in and want to know whatangel possesses this voice. Emarosa was thestand out band of the night, by far. Next upwas August Burns Red - whom I had caughtup with prior to the show for an interview. Althoughthey were fun guys to speak with, thiswas my second time seeing them, and theirset didn’t truly impress me all that much.Their music is a little too heavy for me, butAP TourbyAlexa SpielerPhoto courtesy of Alexa Spielertheir lyrics are incredible. If you don’t knowtheir lyrics beforehand, you won’t be able toappreciate their musicianship, but then again,if heavy music isn’t your ‘thing’, I wouldn’trecommend them. The crowd, however, waslivelier for them than ever with the breakingout of several mosh pits, and overall just anenergized crowd. Allof this energy, however,would carry onfull force for BringMe The Horizon’sset.Bring Me TheHorizon. Everyonewas awaiting for theBritish metalcoreband to step foot onthat stage ever sincethey entered the venuethat night. It waslong awaited and fanswere screaming everytime a band evenmerely mentioned thename ‘Bring Me TheHorizon’. Comingout to the single offtheir latest album, “There Is A Hell, BelieveMe I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’sKeep It A Secret,” their hyped up energypowered the opening song, “It Never Ends.”Lead vocalist, Oli Sykes, continued his habitualaction of going into the crowd duringthe first song, which always makes the crowdgo even crazier. The energy supplied by theseguys on stage is truly remarkable, and that’swhy they’re personally one of my favoriteacts to see live. They performed a good balancebetween tracks off their latest albumalong with tracks off their sophomore album,“Suicide Silence.” They only performed fanfavorite, “Pray For Plagues,” off their firstalbum ‘Count Your Blessings’, but that is understandabledueto the fact that onsuch a huge tourlike the AP Tour,you really want togo out and showeverything, yourlatest stuff. Youwant your set tostart out with abang and finishoff with a bang.That is what BringMe The Horizonultimately did.Besides the facttheir stage presencewas out ofthis world, theirtalking on stagealways made thefans laugh. VocalistOli Sykes cued in with laughable remarkssuch as; “I hope everyone is having a jollygood time out there,” accompanied by othermore obscene and entertaining comments. Itwas truly a combination of stage presence,anticipation, and pure talent that made theirset as great as it was. The only disappointmentwas that it was a rather short set. I lookforward to seeing another Bring Me The Horizonshow in the future, with a rather longerset.Overall, I’d say the people over at AlternativePress did a solid job putting togethera line-up for this year’s fall AP Tour. Thelineup was greatly diverse, and not one bandsounded slightly the same, offering a greatvariation and something for everyone.Giants At Largeby Ilana FriedmanJet Gazette: What is the origin of the band'sname, "Giants At Large"?Matt Lagattuta: The name Giants At Largeis a reference to a really old Mickey Mousecartoon. The moral of the story is that he needsto overcome his fears and believe in himselfto slay the giant. At the beginning of the cartoon,there's a sign that says "Giant At Large"so that's where the name came from.JG: Is it hard tobalance schooland band practice?ML: Not so muchwhen it's justthose two. Rightnow I'm attendingcollege, inthis band, workinga pizza job,recording localbands between allthis, and recordingand mixingmy own band’sstuff. This isdefinitely gettinghard to balance.[Laughs]JG: Do any otherbands inspireyou?Photo courtesy of purevolume.comML: Definitely,my favorite bandof all time is asmall punk rock band called The LawrenceArms. Some of my other favorites are TheAtaris, Brand New, and Blink-182.JG: What is the experience in transitioningfrom one band (Valet Parking) to another?ML: It's strange, with the other band I alwaysshared vocal duties with at least one other person,with this band I sing almost all the time,so that was scary at first. With this band westarted out knowing what we wanted to soundlike and what direction we wanted to go in, althoughnot so much toward the end; there wasalways a struggle for that with the other band.JG: When did you form your band? What inspiredyou to make music together?ML: We formed this band the second weknew the other band was done. Basically Travis,CJ, and I played in Valet Parking together.We were on tour, and our van died in Florida.It was completely unfixable, so we and all ofour equipment were stuck there. We were alltrying to figure out what to do next and ourbass player/singer quit. We all felt so defeated,but we knew it wasn't time to give up. We diddecide that it was time to start fresh and startover though, and not too long after we gothome we met Brian, and everything has beengreat so far.JG: As the songwriter, what are some of themain themes or topics you write about? Doyou think these topics will change over time?ML: All of the lyrics were written at the sametime so all the songs reference each other, andthere's a handful of lyrics that are mentioned ina couple of songs. I guess a main theme wouldbe to stay positive even when everything thatcan go wrong, has gone wrong. The topicswill definitely change. I like to write aboutpersonal experiences,so whateverhappens tome is what I'll bewriting about.JG: How hasyour musicchanged overtime?ML: I wouldn'tsay we are in anyway reinventingthe wheel, butwe're definitelytrying to pushthe boundariesof a "pop-punk"band, and try tothink outside ofthe box for ourgenre. To compareit to my oldband, I'd say it'sless polished anda tad more aggressive.JG: What hasbeen the most difficult time for the band?ML: Auditioning bass players while only havingone song done. That was so frustrating becausewe would do the one song and then belike, "Okay cool, so what do we do now?"JG: Do the band mates always agree or isthere tension?ML: We don't always agree, but we don't dothe "majority rules" thing and leave one personunhappy. If one person wants one thingand another wants something else, we'll compromiseuntil everyone is happy. I feel like thebest stuff comes out when two musicians haveto argue it out to please the two of them.JG: What do you wish to gain from this bandexperience?ML: I just want to make honest music thatpeople can enjoy. I want to travel and makenew friends, and do what makes me happy,and that's this.JG: Anything else you want to add?ML: Support local bands and Long IslandMusic Scene Radio (LIMS). Every band hadto start small at some point, so if you like aband, go to a show, make new friends, andhang out!Ja n u a r y 2011