{"id":1004,"date":"2016-03-27T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1004"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:34:33","slug":"nada-surf-rogue-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1004","title":{"rendered":"Nada Surf, Rogue Wave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 2006, The Loft, Atlanta, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some bands who go about their business making great music, but don\u2019t seem to rise to the popularity level they should. Sure, there\u2019s a steady base of fans who will swear by a certain band, but despite the band\u2019s best efforts, it never finds the right traction to stardom. I\u2019m a fan of several of these \u201cworking\u201d bands, who may find larger success but more or less live their musical lives in venues of 650 or less.<\/p>\n

Nada Surf is one of those bands, sending out solid albums every couple of years or so to critical acclaim, but not quite finding the crowd to go with them. The band started off quickly in 1996 with High\/Low, based on a hit song (Popular) which was a bit gimmicky and not truly demonstrative of who they were as a band. The spoken-word song with lyrics taken from a 1960s book called \u201cPenny\u2019s Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity,\u201d was spit out sarcastically by lead singer Matthew Caws, and combined with the video was a big splash among teens. I\u2019ll admit, I didn\u2019t think much the band.<\/p>\n

Neither did its label, dropping the band after 1998\u2019s The Proximity Effect.<\/em> It was a moment the band needed to decide where it was going and what it wanted to achieve, and it answered with two albums Let Go<\/em> (2002) and The Weight Is a Gift<\/em> (2005) that are pop gems.<\/p>\n

I had just moved back to Georgia in 2006, and was reveling in being able to see bands after working night shifts the previous years. I made the trip to Atlanta to see the band, which had relatively new band Rogue Wave in tow, for what I expected to be a strong show.<\/p>\n

The Loft, a music spot in downtown Atlanta above Center Stage, was at the time a barren, large room with smaller bars in corner spots and a makeshift stage somewhere near the middle of the room. It was akin to seeing a show in a house basement (or attic, as it were), but with more people, all of who smoked. In Athens you embrace shows without the smoke filling the air, Atlanta wasn\u2019t there yet.<\/p>\n

Rogue Wave was good, a Sub-Pop band touring on its sophomore effort Descended Like Vultures<\/em>. Songs \u201cBird on a Wire\u201d and \u201cPublish My Love\u201d still hold up today, and clearly this was a band which had a promising future<\/p>\n

Nada Surf came out as a trio \u2014 Caws, Ira Elliot (drums, backup vocals) and Daniel Lorca (bass, backup vocals) \u2014 and in the party atmosphere you\u2019d expect from a basement party, cracked jokes and bantered with the crowd, which in turn splashed beer about and sang to every word. It was not a big crowd, but the people there were big Nada Surf fans. I was talking with a guy at the bar, and he wondered if the band would play \u201cPopular\u201d. \u201cI hope not,\u201d I said, and he immediately agreed. \u201cThat\u2019s not the band they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band they are wrote songs like Inside of Love, a perfect pop song emoting the lyrics of a lonely 20-something better than Dashboard Confessional ever could. It was a sterling song to play live, and the crowd was into it. \u201cI want to know what it\u2019s like,\u201d they yelled \u201con the inside of love,\u201d and Caws had to smile. If all he does is write that song, he\u2019s achieved a great deal.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s done more than that. The band took liberally from Let Go, opening with \u201cHi-Speed Soul,\u201d adding \u201cBlizzard of \u201977,\u201d \u201cHappy Kid\u201d and \u201cFruit Fly\u201d. A highlight was \u201cBlankest Year\u201d from \u201cThe Weight Is a Gift,\u201d a straight-ahead grinding guitar and drum celebration which opens with the words \u201cOh fuck it, I\u2019m going to have a party.\u201d Yes, a party indeed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure the band did a cover of The Smiths \u201cThere Is a Light That Never Goes Out,\u201d which makes sense, and played a nice, long encore that had the crowd enthralled. It was the right length of show with an excellent selection of songs, which did not include \u201cPopular\u201d. Smart guys.<\/p>\n

An album is expected of the guys this year (the band\u2019s eighth), we\u2019ll have to see what it comes up with. No doubt it will be pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 2006, The Loft, Atlanta, Ga. There are some bands who go about their business making great music, but don\u2019t seem to rise to the popularity level they should. Sure, there\u2019s a steady base of fans who will swear by a certain band, but despite the band\u2019s best efforts, it never finds the right traction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[184,185],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-nada-surf","tag-rogue-wave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}