I Love You but I Choose The Maine

Sometimes I forget how far the light rail is from Showbox SoDo. Learn from my mistakes and plan for at least 20 minutes from the light rail to the venue, especially when there’s a Mariners game. Led by The Maine hosting their “I Love You but I Choose The Maine” tour, there were three opening acts: Franklin Jonas & The Byzantines, Grayscale, and Nightly.

After rushing my way from the light rail, I luckily entered right as the first song from Franklin Jonas & the Byzantines started. Yes, Jonas of the Jonas Brothers family, but not of Jonas Brothers the band. This group is fronted by the fourth Jonas brother and joined The Maine for the first quarter of the tour starting in Las Vegas and ending in Denver. They really were a great choice to start the show. The energy that Franklin brought set the show on the perfect footing as he took multiple opportunities to run around the audience and personally encourage more dancing on the floor. Even his commentary between songs added a silly lightheartedness to the show, at one point causing an audience member to lift up and wave their child in the air. If you’re looking for some uplifting music filled with high energy Jonas and some banjo, this is where you should end up.

Up next was Grayscale, a band based out of Philadelphia whose music felt like a nice mix of rock, emo, and synth wave. Their fourth album, The Hart, released last year and features a single lit-up shamrock that they also featured on the stage for the show. While not on the album itself, the shamrock on stage featured a very prominent phone number. After searches for this phone number turned up few results, I eventually tried calling it and was met with info about setting up voicemail. If you have any idea what 1-833-551-1348 is supposed to be, please let me know.

Thirdly was the band Nightly, a name maybe not so sneakily connected to their debut album Night, Love You. Their backdrop featured a very cute “< 3” sign which enjoyably had its light synced with the kick bass of the drummer. The lead singer not only called out their previous show in Seattle at Neumos but also mentioned getting another tattoo from the local tattoo artist, “Alan.” Walking around the venue I noticed many small groups of people forming their own little dance circles with each other during their set. Nightly’s pop-indie music embodies the energy of another one of their albums aptly titled “songs to drive to”. The music really entices you to roll the windows down, crank the volume up, and sing along with your best friend in the passenger seat.

Our main(e) act for the night, The Maine, is a self-declared “Arizona Emo Group” originating in Tempe, Arizona. Emo music ranges pretty widely based on your emo-tions, and this band was on the energetic end of this spectrum. Frontman John O’Callaghan was enthusiastic from start to finish and didn’t stop dancing around the stage throughout the whole set, even though their stage had a couch sitting in the back. As someone who doesn’t pay attention to baseball games outside of how it affects venue parking, it was a bit funny when John asked if the Mariners had won their game that night and the crowd let out a collective “ugh” as a response.

Further into the set, John wanted to try “a new bit” and asked the audience to take out only real lighters and lift them into the air, presumably expecting there to only be a few. When a large droves of them started sparking up across the venue, John responded with “oh right, weed is legal here.” The Maine isn’t new to the scene, as they’ve been putting albums out since 2008 with their first album aptly titled Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. John even called himself out for being a teenage “poser” when he bought his first pair of Etnies shoes and didn’t actually know how to skateboard.

Unless you consider the occasional ollie, I’m right there with you buddy. The shoes were quite comfy, though. A benefit of this show is that The Maine’s latest album, Joy Next Door, doesn’t officially release until this Friday, April 10th, so it was a nice preview of what we have to look forward to this coming weekend. Strap on your skate shoes with a unique “straight lace” pattern like I did in high school and prepare yourself for The Maine’s 10th studio album release and hopefully some continued beautiful Spring weather.