Concert Preview: Switchfoot @ Spokane County Fair

On September 27th multi-platinum band Switchfoot will release their eighth studio record titled Vice Verses. But before that they will perform a concert at the Spokane County Fair Grandstand on Friday August 16, 2011. Like many bands with a new record due out soon, they will in no doubt play a few of their new songs. After giving their new album a listen, it has made me extremely excited to see them on Friday. “Vice Verses is a record of tension and release. It’s an attempt to describe the polarity of the human experience. The sunlight and shadow. The highs and lows, laughter and pain, hope and fear, doubts and belief,” says lead singer/guitarist Jon Foreman. The concert will have everything, so don’t miss out. But if you do look back here two days after the show the to read about it and see a bunch of photos.

Vice Verses is the work of a band that is so restless, they devote an entire song (“Restless”) to the condition. It’s that very uneasiness – an unwillingness to choose the treadmill over the triathlon – that fuels the band’s forays into new musical territory and Jon Foreman’s unflinchingly honest lyrics. You can hear the tension build along with the first chords of album opener “Afterlife,” leading into a bold statement of intent: “I’ve tasted fire I’m ready to come alive/I can’t just shut it up and fake that I’m alright/I’m ready now/I’m not waiting for the afterlife….I believe we start forever now.” (Bobbie Gale/Ashley White/Bighassle.com)

Songs like “Afterlife” and “The War Inside” take the harder-edged approach of Hello Hurricane a step further, creating what Billboard has called “powerful, anthemic rockers…like an amalgamation of U2’s ‘Achtung Baby,’ Linkin Park.” Overall, Vice Verses is a more eclectic collection than its predecessor with quiet gems like “Souvenirs” and the title track butting up against the infectious “The Original,”reminiscent of Foo Fighters, and the biting, largely spoken-word “Selling the News.” The latter is a poetry slam Beck-meets-Beastie Boys style examination of a media-mad nation: “America listens the story is told/the hard sell, all caps, all bold…begging the question mongering fears/stroking the eye and tickling ears/the truth ain’t just what it appears/we’re selling the news.” (Bobbie Gale/Ashley White/Bighassle.com)

Even if Switchfoot does not play any of the new songs off their Vices Verses you know that a multi-platinum band with eighth studio records is not going to disappoint or their would not still be recording new records and touring. So be sure to head out to the Switchfoot concert on Friday August 16, 2011. If your not in the Spokane area be sure to buy their record when it comes out on September 27th.