Dashboard Confessional Kick Off Two-Night Celebration at Webster Hall

Dashboard Confessional – Webster Hall – March 10, 2020

Barely visible over the heads of a sold-out crowd in an absolutely jam-packed concert venue, Chris Carrabba was a ghost haunting Webster Hall last night. He was nowhere. But he was also everywhere, in every voice, on every screen, an energy emanating from every corner. He was really literally somewhere in the room, probably. But then again, who knows? Carrabba sounds, frankly, better than ever. Last night’s show at Webster Hall celebrated the 20th anniversary of emo opus The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, and some songs, like the album’s title track, were played faithfully, as they were on tape. Last night at Webster Hall, two decades later, those songs may have sounded the best they ever did. Where there were rearrangements, like a dreamy, electric “Remember to Breathe,” they were rewarding, often dazzling.

Dashboard Confessional are simply one of the best live acts performing today. I’m prone to exaggeration, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right. After opener “The Best Deceptions,” Carrabba remarked, “I can count how many times the crowd sang it that well.” It’s hard to know whether to believe him—part of a performer’s job is to make everyone in each audience feel extraordinary. But that seems realistic. This was what you imagined concerts were like before you were old enough to get into them: The sheer volume of the crowd sing-along was crazy. In fact, I couldn’t help but say that, aloud—“This is crazy”—before that first song concluded.

And the crowd knew all the twists and turns, the little live variations we’ve come to expect in these familiar songs now that they’ve spread for 20 years as folklore, through bootlegs and YouTube recordings. At the penultimate refrain of “Screaming Infidelities,” everyone in the room all knew, reflexively, to climb that extra octave, and near the end of “Again I Go Unnoticed,” to yell, “Are we out of time?” This was a dream of community made real, a shared history manifested as an energy, a spirit. Carrabba put it best: “Along with you, we are Dashboard Confessional.” —Adlan Jackson | @AdlanKJ

Photos courtesy of Toby Tenenbaum | @Tobytenenbaum