The Hollywood Palladium is a grand old theatre with some of the tightest security I've seen. You'd think that they would be guarding the wealth of the nation in this venue. And well they might have with the quality of the headliner, Something Corporate in the house.

This 4 band show offered sets by Days Away, Mae, and RX Bandits, openers who were good but were outmatched by the talent of the upcoming ticket band. As each band took the stage, their quality increased, priming the crowd for the explosive entry of Something Corporate.

Something Corporate took the stage around 9p.

They started the show with "Straw Dog" from their first album and then sprinkled their set alternately throughout with songs from both albums. With lights on and no encore, Something Corporate finished with 16 songs in all. Tucked into the middle of the set were three new songs that were slow paced.

With a frenetic delivery, the band was all over the stage. The most raucous of the quintet was profanity tossing, Andrew McMahon who found himself on the stacks at times, singing with a voice that borders on near perfection, away from the usual rough edges of many vocalists of this genre. The energy between Something Corporate and the audience was symbiotic, a necessary ingredient to a great show.

With every song a highly crafted diamond, Something Corporate controlled the evening well with a paced set that paid attention to the popularity of the tune. During the show, people in the front kept yelling for "Hurricane" but was consistently rebuffed by McMahon. McMahon explained several times that the point of the concert was to produce a spread of tunes with the set holding some of the best songs toward the end. And "Hurricane" eventually made its appearance at the very end, perhaps to prove the point.

Regardless, the show was an exciting one. With a crowd that held a nice range of age that bodes well for Something Corporate, it is clear their appeal is as popular with a young crowd as with the young adult crowd. The immediately recognizeable benefit is that Something Corporate shows their expansive reach which virtually guarantees their ability to communicate with several age groups. That can translate into longevity. And that strengthens popularity. With a tight set that produced the best of their two albums in an environment of appreciative fans, Something Corporate proves they have what it takes to deservingly walk into their future with an ever expanding fanbase.

This two hour, Something Corporate set in this show at the Hollywood Palladium was, to borrow a word from McMahon, "fu**ing" amazing.

MusicTAP's Concert Girl - Shari Rowe