I must have seen Nada Surf a dozen times between my junior and senior years of high school. They used to play these tiny clubs around New York, like Brownies, Luna Lounge…places whose names I don’t even remember. And me and my nerdy friends who heard and fell in love with The Proximity Effect when it came out in the summer of 2000 would go to all these shows and stand among the five, ten, fifteen people in the crowd and just revel in it.
In April of 2001 the band scheduled a small east coast tour. The first show we saw, if I remember correctly, was at a small club down near the Jersey shore. I brought my mini-disc recorder and a microphone and set my rig up right near the front of the stage. After the band’s set, Daniel Lorca asked me if I could please mail him a copy of the show because he wanted to hear what the band’s new songs sounded like. I told him I was going to be at the next night’s show in New York (I might have the order wrong, New York might have come first or it might have been more than one night later), and I mentioned that I was going to be in Boston a few days later touring Boston University if he wanted me to record those shows for him as well. We exchanged information and he said it was cool if I recorded any of their shows, I just had to send him copies.
So, I went to Boston with my mom for a night and we took a tour of Boston University, which was where I most wanted to go to college. After our tour and a meeting with an advisor, I called a friend who was at BU at the time, and he met me at my hotel and we went over to the Middle East. It just so happened he was interviewing Matthew Caws for a school paper or an Alt. weekly or something, so between his interview and my being able to record the show it was a Nada Surf fanboy’s dream. Also, I think I remember sneaking outside to take a bunch of opium resin hits before the show? Some of the details are fuzzy. I definitely recall making an ass out of myself once or twice during the interview with unnecessary, dorky remarks. The concert (which was held in the 200-capacity upstairs room) as being phenomenal, and my recording sounded decent too. The band was still working a number of songs that would appear on Let Go (released on Barsuk in 2002), but when that album came out I think most of my friends who had banded together and followed Nada Surf around were disappointed with the end result. Oh well! They rebuilt their fanbase, recaptured the hearts of those who fell in love with “Popular” and then disappeared during The Proximity Effect years…they’re still going strong. Good for them!
As for me, after Boston my mom and I continued up to Burlington, and I fell in love with the University of Vermont. That didn’t work out too well, but that’s another story for another blog post. In regards to Nada Surf, I’ll always have fond memories of those tiny New York club shows and the series of shows I taped for Daniel in 2001. Of course, seeing Nada Surf three times in a week wasn’t the most obsessive I ever got over following a band on tour…but that’s a story I’ll wait until tomorrow to tell.
Nada Surf
Middle East (Upstairs)
April 13th, 2001
MegaUpload DL Link
01. Killian’s Red
02. Hyperspace
03. Amateur
04. Stalemate
05. Icebox
06. Bacardi
07. 80 Windows
08. Treading Water
09. The Voices
10. Paper Boats
11. The Way You Wear Your Head
12. Slow Down
13. Pressure Free
14. Blizzard Of ’77
15. Inside Of Love
16. The Plan
