THE DISMEMBERMENT PLAN @ Metro

The Dismemberment Plan
With: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, Kid You'll Move Mountains
Where: The Metro
When: February 19th, 2011
Reviewed by: Zach Partin

“I must’ve been having a ball, yeah.”

Before I even get into trying to somehow compartmentalize the experience of seeing a reunited Dismemberment Plan, I have to point out that some glorious soul recorded the show from what appears to be the soundboard. Here is the link to Saturday, the 19th, and Sunday, the 20th. The setlist is included in both links.

I’m only 24 years young. By the time I was introduced to The Dismemberment Plan’s masterpiece Emergency & I, they had been broken up for four years. With this in mind, I never fathomed that I would have the opportunity to experience this music live. Never once. It was just something I had accepted, similar to the fact that I’ll quite possibly never see Bear vs Shark or At the Drive In.

In 2007, The Plan got back together for an incredibly noble cause and played one show in D.C. Then in September of 2010, Barsuk Records announced the vinyl release of Emergency & I. Tour ensues. Music geeks lose their shit. Fast-forward to February and all of the sudden it’s the 19th.

It’s almost as if The Plan didn’t go anywhere. You would never guess these guys don’t play week in and week out. Each song was flawless. They opened with “A Life of Possibilities” into “Face of the Earth” off of Change, their final LP. The show leaned heavily on cuts from Emergency & I, with heavily splices of Change for good measure.

Listening to the show now, it’s hard to write a review without thinking about all the time I spent with these songs. Heading to the city from the suburbs in high school, snowboarding in Montana, cruising West down I-90, walking around campus between classes. And The Dismemberment Plan sold out two shows at The Metro. That’s over 2,000 people, right? So many people have the same connections to these tracks. And most sang every word to the songs.

Many of the crowd favorites were personal favorites as well. “Spider in the Snow,” “What Do You Want Me to Say,” “Time Bomb,” and of course, “Do the Standing Still.” They closed out the night with two of their best, “The City,” and they invited a good portion of the audience up on stage for “The Ice of Boston."

The moment that best sums up the night came towards the beginning, with Travis Morrison singing the opening words to “You Are Invited.” The crowd erupted with the first notes of the song, and you can hear it in the recording, they sing every word. And just with that, the whole night was summed up for both the crowd and The Dismemberment Plan. We’ve wanted this for years from The Plan, and they were gracious enough to let us experience their music one more time. Hopefully it is not the last.