Radio 104.5 Birthday Celebration Day Two 6/30 Review

When I saw the lineup for day two of the 104.5 Birthday Celebration, I knew I had to buy tickets and trek it out all the way to Camden, New Jersey. I made an executive decision to miss the Great Enough, because I don't really like their music. I also missed Glorious Sons, but I saw the rest of the bands on the new music discovery stage. They were all. pretty good, none I've really heard of and all seeming like they started off as college bands. The Shelters were pretty good, but they seemed a bit too close to Arctic Monkeys for comfort. DREAMERS, arguably one of the best of the small bands, also dug into an early 2000s guitar rock vein, going more towards the Strokes but unique enough to be interesting. The Wrecks put on a good show, but I don't really like their music that much. I'm definitely going to listen to more The Shelters and DREAMERS, and hopefully catch them at the bigger BB&T stage in a year or two.

Missio was frankly a disappointment. Even one of the friends I went with is really into Missio and even wore their shirt to the show said that they were much better on recording. They sounded pretty bad coming through the speakers and used way too many backing tracks, but they certainly had quite a lot of energy. Next up was the reason I came to the concert, Sir Sly, and they didn't disappoint. They started off with a new song, Welcomes The Pressure, with a timeless riff that floats above the electronic banger that will make it a great single that could easily get played on alternative radio. All the rest of the songs were from their most recent album, Don't You Worry, Honey, except for the inevitable gold off of You Haunt Me. They played with incredible energy, especially Jason Suwito (aka Raeko) on four or five instruments (sometimes two at once), and in the words of one of the people I saw the show with, "RAEKO IS GOD". I thought it was interesting how they used a drum machine to layer with the drums for &Run, and my main issue with the set was that it wasn't longer. As you can tell I think Sir Sly was the best in the first half of the show, but AJR almost gave them a run for their money. They put on a very fun show and the crowd was really into it, but the music was clearly not designed for the stage and had a bit too many backing tracks. They also made some cracks at their label, saying their hit Sober Up wasn't publicized enough and they should just play Weak, their bigger hit, three times in a row instead.

Mike Shinoda was added later so I was a little surprised, but he put on a really good show. He did have tons of backing tracks, but he made up for it in pure energy and professional musicianship. He did all his raps super fast and live, and he sang too. To top off his set he even played guitar and keyboard throughout very well, and had the audience sing the late Chester Bennington's parts to commemorate the life of the late singer for Linkin Park (Shinoda was the rapper). Judah and the Lion brought tons of energy with their "Folk Hop n Roll", with excellent interplay between instruments and command of the large BB&T. They definitely made me want to listen to more of their music, and much of the crowd knew their music and danced to it. Imagine Dragons, the headliner closed the set. They really showed they had mastery of their whole multimedia experience from all the touring, and played all the songs flawlessly. Just like their concert I saw in Barclays last December (you can read the review here), they skipped Amsterdam and Round and Round, but thankfully they did play Mouth of the River and closed off an excellent show.