DsCene & Heard: Hellogoodbye, Ace Enders, NeverShoutNever!, & PlayRadioPlay! at Sonar

Okay, be honest: is the DsCene & Heard title the lamest thing ever? It sounded so much cooler in my head...

Anyways, a few months ago, I saw Hellogoodbye, Ace Enders, NeverShoutNever!, and PlayRadioPlay! at Sonar, this little club in Baltimore, and wrote a review of it for my guitar class. Reviewing it was really fun, so rather than just writing a crappy little list of who performed & how they sounded, I tried to make the review good. And I wanted my review to be read by more people than just my guitar teacher, so I thought I'd post it here [more people than just my guitar teacher will read this, right?]

On November 7, 2008, I saw Hellogoodbye, Ace Enders, NeverShoutNever, and PlayRadioPlay perform live at Sonar in Baltimore. The show had a diverse group of performers and was overall the most enjoyable live performance I have ever seen.


NeverShoutNever, alias Christopher Ingle, performed first. Ingle’s acoustic pop songs were very pleasant to listen to and told heartwarming stories of love, insecurity, and growing up in a small town. Ingle sang and played tambourine accompanied by a man on acoustic guitar. NeverShoutNever was a huge crowd pleaser. Ingle said we were “the best crowd ever” which may have been true, considering that he is a newcomer to the music scene and already caused hoards of girls in the crowd to scream “I love you!” at the end of each song. The audio quality was not world-class, but Ingle demonstrated an impressive vocal range and the set overall was, like its lovable performer, absolutely adorable.


The next act, PlayRadioPlay, bore a freakishly similar name to NeverShoutNever but had virtually nothing else in common. PlayRadioPlay, alias Dan Hunter, performed electropop music that was as different from NeverShoutNever’s sunny acoustic pop as day and night. Like Ingle before him and Hellogoodbye after him, Hunter seemed like a bit of a geek; unlike the other acts, he seemed cold and emotionally distant from the crowd. He thrashed around with a variety of good-looking guitars, apparently oblivious to how silly he looked. His singing was virtually inaudible, even though he bent over the microphone like some sort of monster poised to devour the mic and the audience after it. Hunter was accompanied by a drummer and keyboardist, neither of whom ever addressed the crowd; Hunter barely said a word to the audience either. His audio quality was extremely poor, and all of his songs suffered from a lack of a discernible melody. Most of the crowd clearly disliked the set; my favorite part of it was watching people move away to the bar and merchandise tables so I could take their spots closer to the stage. It was evident that even among this group of geeky pop bands, Hunter was an outcast. The show would have flowed better without him.


The concert regained its momentum with the next act, Ace Enders and a Million Different People. Enders’ rock music was the most mainstream music of the night, but it just as well-received as Ingle’s and Hellogoodbye’s more eclectic tunes. Enders sang and played guitar on some songs, accompanied by a bassist, guitarist, and drummer. The four were very popular with the crowd, many of whom appeared to be personal friends of Enders and his bassist. Enders played faster, louder versions of the songs on his EP “The Secret Wars”. Their songs were fun and catchy, prompting jumping, moshing, and even some uncoordinated attempts at break dancing and crowd surfing in the audience. Bassist Sergio Anello got into it as well, jumping around, making funny faces for the crowd, and trying to climb up the wall. Enders’ set was probably the most fun live performance I have ever seen.


It seems necessary to mention that Sonar is a very small club, and the crowd was very tightly packed. The heat by this point in the show verged on unbearable, causing Enders and Anello to sweat visibly. One girl in the audience even fainted from the heat. The bar offered free glasses of ice water, but few audience members dared venture away from their spots near the stage. Although it was easy to forget the heat and smell during the sets, the waiting periods between sets were awful.


Nearly three hours after the show began, Hellogoodbye performed. Lead singer Forrest Kline was sick, so his vocals were fairly awful, but that only added to the fun, unique feeling of the show. Kline had to sing one song entirely in falsetto, which was absolutely hilarious. He talked to the crowd, commiserating with another girl who was sick and inviting another girl to freestyle rap on stage. The other band members mostly stayed silent, except for guitarist Ryan Daly, who inexplicably and repeatedly told the crowd that his father pronounces Baltimore like “Baltee-more.” The crowd’s love was mostly aimed at Kline, the only member who has stayed with the band since its creation in 2001. Hellogoodbye’s audio quality was not great, and they only played two songs from their upcoming album, but Kline’s magnetic personality more than made up for their less than perfect musical performance.


The night ended with a truly grand finale in which Kline invited Ingle and Enders to help him sing Hellogoodbye’s most popular song, “Here (In Your Arms).” Hunter did not join them; he has been known to perform additional acoustic shows after his sets. Enders was at the merchandise table when the song began, and he crowd surfed the length of the club to reach the stage. The song was fairly chaotic; Enders repeatedly forgot the words and had to be reminded by Kline, and fans jumped on stage to join the performers. Still, the song exemplified the show: three eccentric pop bands performing sets that were not airtight but were tons of fun, pleasing fans and offering a truly unique musical experience, while PlayRadioPlay played alone out in the cold November night.

Why is this review still relevant? Well, although Hellogoodbye seems to be skipping the spring tours to record their next album, Ace Enders and NeverShoutNever! both have upcoming tours.

NeverShoutNever! is heading out on tour again with The Scene Aesthetic, The Honorary Title, and The Bigger Lights + Carter Hulsey. He'll be playing in the DC area at Jaxx in Springfield, Virginia on Sunday, March 8. Jaxx is a little club in a strip mall with a trashy-looking website. Their newest bartender is named Emily, and you can see pictures of her in a bikini here.

I'll probably spend that night dying inside because my parents won't let me go to concerts on school nights, but you should try to go and join the hoardes announcing their love at the top of their lungs.

After that tour, NSN heads out on the Bamboozle Roadshow, which will be stopping at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland on Tuesday, April 28. He will be joined by We The Kings, Forever The Sickest Kids, The Cab, and Mercy Mercedes. In case I get reincarnated inside between this show and his show at Jaxx, I will be dying inside again that night because I cannot go.

More info about both these shows can be found on NSN's MySpace.

In other NSN news, his ukelele EP is now available on iTunes for those of you suckers who missed the free download week, and his song "Your Biggest Fan" will never get out of my head. Ever.

PlayRadioPlay! has not announced any future tour plans on his MySpace. Not that I would see him again anyways.

Ace Enders is also headin gout on tour again soon. This time, he will be supporting Craig Owens of Chiodos. The Color Fred, and VersaEmerge. His closest stop to the DC area is at Ottobar in Baltimore on Thursday, April 9, which is right in the middle of spring break for some of us. This much-anticipated show is rumored to be a hot ticket, so it's recommended that you make plans to go soon. My parents aren't too keen on the B-more club scene, but I'm trying to go.

More tour info on Ace's MySpace.

Also, if my smugness about downloading NSN's EP for free makes you want to punch me in the face, i'd like to offer you the link to downloa Ace Enders' album for free as an appeasement. It's right here, and it's totally jsut as good as NSN's...

I could burn you a copy of NSN's EP if you still want to punch me in the face.

[P.S. Sorry for the weird font changes; I'm having some HTML trouble with this post...]