Win Tix to The Format, et al. @ Avalon This Thurs

Starting with the low end of the bill and working our way up, here’s the skinny on this Dog Days of Summer show for which we have some tickets to giveaway.

Breakdowns on 3 of bands and a link to enter to win tickets after the jump.

Anathallo

Rainer Maria

The Format

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Anathallo are a Michigan band doing this baroque pop Sufjan-meets-emo thing. Very nice songwriting going on here, with some damn slick semi-orchestral production. They felt like a new discovery, so imagine my surprise when browsed the Wiki on them and find they’ve been around since at least ‘01, have 3 full-lengths and a fistful of eps. I guess the blogosphere has arbitrarily decided to not bang the gong for them. Which is a shame, because they deserve it. At least as much as, say, those kids in Beirut do.

Brooklyn’s Rainer Maria, on the other hand, are a familiar proposition, long time punk pop KXLU faves. But now, ten (!) years in, they’re just starting to grow a new fanbase on the fringes of the emo set. Always a neat phenomenon, this mid-to-late career spurt in popularity. Unlike many bands, I suspect it was not a cynical, premeditated move on their part, but more a case of the wave of the zeitgeist catching them at the right time. They even received a NYTimes write up for this.

Headlining are The Format, who for the fact they emerge from Arizona alone should get some props. Seriously, when was the last time something great came out of AZ? Arizona Iced Tea? (That tea is from Long Island, you non-researching mofo. –Ed.) Again, here you have a talented band with great pop tunes that has all but remained invisible to the blogosphere. My guess is The Format have focused more on MySpace and more mainstream channels in trying to find an audience. Perhaps it is telling that they have already sold out their Anaheim show. They’ll be opening for All American Rejects in big halls in the fall, so that effectively will kill any chance they might have had with a particular faction of miltant indie purists. (Although with Bloc Party about to tour the States with Panic At The Disco, those same purists might have a bigger dilemma to ponder.) See The Format now before they become next Weezer. I know we said Shins up there, but on second thought, I see more of a potential Weezer career trajectory for them.

So there you have it. Three bands, for each of whom the use of labels “indie”, “emo”, “pop”, and “punk” has begun to break down. After watching a bafflingly young all-ages crowd eat up Wolf Parade, I suspect in some quarters even those guys are being tagged as “emo.” And that would go a long way to all but finally killing the use of the term. Let the Post-Emo era begin.

UPDATE: Tickets have been given away. Some still available at the door.