I wasn't there, but here's a small review w/ a brief mention of The Features.

Did anyone else make it?

i went. with todd and marissa.

it was fun.

and though i wish i could report a setlist or something. i can't...because...welll there were (a lot of) free drinks...and well...you know.

Setlist off the top of my head....

The Begining
Million Ways
TWIMTB
Arcata
Foundations Cracked
Gates of Hell
Hold You Alone
Demons
Exhibit A
Mosis Ptosis
Thursday

May have missed one or two songs... but this seems pretty right

(Edited by Peace Frog at 11:43 am on Sep. 21, 2005)

sounds like a pretty good show judging from the setlist. what were the other bands like?

Editors were kinda like Joy Division dressed up like Coldplay (does every brit band now have to wear all black and white shoes? Was there a memo I missed?) I enjoyed them enough. Don't think I'd really pay to see them, but weren't a buzz kill. I didn't see Maximo Park as I was hanging out in the hospitality area with the band and management. (That was in no way any sort of name dropping, just the facts, and I couldn't hear nor see Maximo.) All the Brits that came over really seemed to enjoy them though. I left about halfway thru their set and they were all piled up front dancing.

From the Nashville Scene:

"... The Features brought the rock. They apparently are doing “fairly well” in the U.K. according to everyone we talked to, and it was great to watch a crowd of Brits erupt over their single “The Way It’s Meant to Be.” The funny thing is, we could tell who was British without hearing an accent, though we never quite figured out how. Maybe it was the trainers, or their complexions, which look as though they’ve never seen sunlight. Or was it the way they smoked their cigarettes? Still, they were a polite bunch, yelling things like, “You play very well!” to the bands. “Oh, it’s been amazing,” a contest winner named Paul told us about his first trip to the States. “Of course, anything free is amazing, yeah?” Yeah. Editors might as well be called Interpol Jr., dressed in black and channeling intensely moody new wave. But Maximo Park won our hearts with their tight, rally-heavy post-punk. If only all the rock shows had such enthusiastic crowds and great music, there’d never be a bad review. And that’s not the booze talking."




"Still, they were a polite bunch, yelling things like, “You play very well!” to the bands."

**laughing my ass off**

Pitchfork Review

Live: Maxïmo Park/Editors/the Features
The Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN: 17 September 2005
Story by Malcolm Jackson Turner
It's Jack's birthday, but no Bacardi was sipped. That's because this party was for one Mr. Jack Daniel, commemorating the 155th Anniversary of his birth. In the capital of country music, the renowned liquor company that bears his name celebrated in an obscenely decadent fashion, playing host to a couple hundred British contest winners and a cavalry of journalists for two nights. They were flown in, put up at the Nashville Sheraton, shuttled to the whiskey distillery in nearby Lynchburg, and served a hearty BBQ dinner. Through it all, they were plied with enough Jack Daniel's-themed beverages that they would be lucky to have any memories from this weekend at all, save for their newly purchased cowboy hats and "Redneck Woman" t-shirts.

One could only hope that the Jack-induced fog lifted for at least a few hours for a private show that was the culmination of the weekend's festivities. One stage. Three bands. Scantily-clad women purveying burgers, hot dogs, and skewers. And, of course, a bottomless supply of Jack Daniel's. This is known as the JD Set, a show that has taken place in different UK and U.S. cities for the past 10 years, unbeknownst to almost anyone residing in the U.S. Alumni of the JD Set include Elbow, Turin Brakes, the Flaming Lips (who headlined at the Lynchburg distillery last year), and everyone's favorite posterboys for alcohol abuse, Jet.

This year's bill at the Mercy Lounge included two British acts-- up-and-comers Editors, and headliners Maxïmo Park-- as well as one local selection, the Features. The local boys trotted out first. Singer/guitarist Matthew Pelham squinted and stared out into the crowd, as if he was still trying to figure out if he was at home or in England. (Not every day does one hear 200 British accents in a Nashville concert venue.) He shrugged and turned his attention to his guitar, launching into the band's debut album, Exhibit A. In a competition with free booze, most openers would hardly stand a chance, but the Features earned the audience's rapt attention-- perhaps because the Features are not typical local fare. Thanks to the support of the UK's Fierce Panda label and several fawning notices for their debut album, they're a known commodity in Britain.

It's easy to why the Features go down easy abroad, even if they remain unknown in their own country. The band's pub-rock brand of indie is hardly Nashville-by-numbers, relying as much on the savvy power-pop of Elvis Costello as it does on the more contemporary, meaty crunch of the Hold Steady. However, in this live setting, the band's Nashville roots peeked out ever so slightly, with Pelham's trace southern drawl imbuing his rough-hewn melodies with a comforting familiarity. The band's set peaked with fiery rendition of Exhibit A's title track. Any lingering hesitancy dissipated with the song's punchy, wordless chorus. If the clock hadn't read 9:30 p.m., it would have been easy to mistake this uncommonly confident set for the main event.

While technically competent, Editors, who emerged in suspiciously sudden fashion in the wake of the New Romantic revival, may have been weaned from the England club circuit a bit too early. In sharp contrast to the Features, Editors still looked like a band in desperate search for an identity to call its own. The live set only underscored the shortcomings of the band's sickeningly obeisant debut album, both musically and visually. As noted elsewhere, Tom Smith's comatose timbre bore an eerily accurate similarity to Ian Curtis, but even Interpol's Paul Banks, who's equally enamored of Curtis's slack delivery, wouldn't dare go so far as to appropriate Curtis's physical tics as well. When his limbs weren't in calculatedly spasmodic mode, Smith instead employed the brooding, expressive hand motions of Michael Stipe or, when taking to the keyboard, the patented closed-eyed head bob of Thom Yorke. The pulsating gothic spike of "Munich" briefly hinted at what this band might be capable of should they start putting as much effort into their songs as they do their imitation. But for now, the second guitarist's Casper-esque complexion served as an unfortunately apt metaphor for the Editors' music-- frightfully devoid of any distinguishing color or shade.

Thankfully, Maxïmo Park provided a fitting finish for this absurdly festive event. On record, Maxïmo Park might be confused for dourly serious contemporaries like Bloc Party; however, onstage, the other Smith-- Maxïmo's frontman Paul Smith-- converted the musically ambitious A Certain Trigger into something of a party album. Well, ok, a party for people who think rhyming "lost" with "riposte" is downright hilarious. In a black suit, shirt, tie and der Fuhrer coiffure, Smith came off as a kind of nervous Eurotrash cousin to Howlin' Pelle Almqvist. And like Almqvist, his antics, the frequent lapel grabs and karate chops, proved thoroughly mesmerizing even during his band's more pedestrian post-punk stabs like "Now I'm All Over the Shop."

However, to the band's credit, Maxïmo Park wasn't often forced to rely exclusively on its frontman's charisma. Songs like "The Coast Is Always Changing", "Going Missing", and "I Want You to Stay" poured out of the speakers with a massive, anthemic quality that belied both the venue's intimacy and the band's relative inexperience, giving the excitable Smith melodies that warranted his manic movements. They closed with a new one called "My Life in Reverse," which deviated little from Maxïmo's quixotic post-punk paradigm, and a rather unlikely cover of Stereolab's "French Disko", on which they were aided and abetted by Editors. "You're about to witness something that never should have happened," quipped Smith before Editors entered stage left. The two Smiths read lyrics off small folded printouts, which were rendered completely unnecessary by the metallic din of the dueling guitars. Judging from the applause as the song chugged to a halt, the crowd appreciated the bands' lapse in judgment.

Maybe they even remembered it in the morning.

i can only imagine the amount of man-candy that flowed at that show.