2005: Year In Review
By Jake Vigliotti
January 1, 2006
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| Location of Ants throughout the World |
First, in honor of Mark Baston producing the latest album, we’re going to repeat the key phrases in multiple paragraphs! Our finest hour has indeed arrived! OK, maybe we won’t (just read it twice and we’ll count it the same way). Kidding aside, I for one liked Stand Up, sometimes by reading the message boards I think I’m the only one, but I was happy with the sound Baston infused with the band. I will say the lyrics left me, well, lets just say there are times when I have a hard time ranking SU and Everyday in terms of lyrical content. It’s not that I think Dave has lost it, I think that sometimes producers can get caught up in a theme, and it gets carried away (Hello Again, it’s been too long, or; Seems like forever between now and then…). That’s why as much as I liked the Stand Up album, I still think there is room for improvement. The best sign I saw was that Dave was in the studio working on stuff. Dave had a good writing session in 02 – which lead to the Some Devil Solo release – so maybe that old magic will creep back into song.
For the record, I do think that there are some well-written songs on Stand Up – including the seemingly hated Old Dirt Hill. I guess I’m looking for a little less redundancy over and over again.
The 2005 tour was the best since 2000 (just like I told you earlier). Spare me the 2003 junk, 05 was EXACTLY what fans have been clamoring for out of a tour: New songs that mature and adjust to a live crowd. Stinkin’ Everyday didn’t cover that spread. Check out the first Louisiana Bayou of the tour , and then just grab some random August show Bayou. That, my friends, is what the DMB does best. The song matured, and meandered throughout the band to make it much better live. As far as tours go, I’d still put 2000 above it – mainly for the placement of a few songs in 05 that were Topo Gigio-like follow ups - and the rawness of 2000 makes those shows still very fresh to hear.
So what does that mean for 06 tour wise? Well, I hate to jinx the band, but there’s no reason why they can’t eclipse last year’s tour in terms of quality. Just think of the stuff that didn’t work from Stand Up, and eliminate a few hanger’s on, and you’re talking about a show that could feature (out of 18 hypothetical songs), 7 new songs, 2 UTTAD songs, 2 Crash songs, 2 BTCS songs, 1 BS song, 1 ED song, and 3 SU songs. I’ll take my chances on not getting Fool To Think with that any day of the week.
What about that new album? What will it sound like? Stand Up 2, Electric Boogaloo? If I were to guess, I’d think that the album would be more jazzy than the last. That’s just a guess. They’ll probably recycle a song or two from the past (pray for Cigarette Lit and the 7.3.03 sc song). Either way, once the band gets going in March, I’m sure we’ll find out very quickly the direction of the album.
Now for the part you’ve been waiting for: self-gratification! No, not like that. Not only did Mr. Matthews celebrate a birthday, but so did your favorite cynical DMB fansite, antsmarching.org. It’s hard to believe that it was four years ago when a spunky bunch of kids had a dream… oh who am I kidding? But it has been a fun four years, without doubt. The world is certainly a better place due to the ‘Dude, this is "angel from montgomery" which Dave covered a couple of times. but i can't remember right now who originally played it’ thread, and dare I even mention America’s girlfriend, Julie? The message boards become for some their daily fix for what’s happening in the world. We never dreamed that we’d have 100,000 people signed up for our little site (btw, less than 1% are alter egos or duplicate names – we counted). We introduced Tour Central exactly a year ago and it has seen you populate your info. This graphic is a picture of all the Ants all over the world. We mainly want to say thank you to those of you who have helped us by being the antsmarching community – through meet-ups at shows, waving banners, donations to the site, etc. Clearly, antsmarching.org is nothing without those of you who stop by and use the site.
The views and comments expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of antsmarching.org.
