Review Summary: A pitiful and embarrassing live version of a modern classic that should’ve never been released.
What makes a concert great? If you asked a hundred people this question, you would without a doubt see dozens of differing answers, but you’d likely see a pattern in the responses. High energy, skillful musicianship, a fun or rowdy atmosphere, or simply the thrill of getting to see your favorite musicians live in person are all different things that help elevate an average concert into a spectacular one. Oftentimes, bands or artists don’t need to check each and every one of these boxes; sometimes a band is able to make up for sub-par musical talent with the infectious energy they provide, or vice versa.
What makes a concert
album great? To me, this is a much trickier question to answer; some of the qualities listed before that make concerts appealing simply don’t translate in album form. For example, if you went and saw your number one favorite band in concert, but you caught them on an off night where they didn’t sound so good, you might be more inclined to forgive the mediocre performance because you were just grateful to be there and see them in person to begin with. This is never, however, the case for concert albums. To justify releasing a live album, there is an objectively higher bar to clear and there is a certain expectation for high-quality musicianship, otherwise why would anyone listen to a live album when the studio versions exist? The most famous and well-known live albums in existence all have two major things in common: they serve as ways to showcase artistic talent to an audience that may not have had the opportunity to see them in person, and (most of all) they make the listener wish they could’ve seen/heard it in person.
You saw the rating when you began reading this review; I’m sure it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what I’m going to say about
Say Anything…Is A Real Boy (Live Version) (which, yes, is the full name of the album). This live rendition of the 2004 pop-punk classic isn’t just shameful and embarrassing, but it arguably tarnishes the legacy of the original album.
Say Anything…Is A Real Boy (Live Version) is abhorrently awful as an album and, somehow, makes me feel genuinely bad for anyone who sadly wasted their hard-earned money to attend this concert in person.
For starters, I am entirely convinced that the decision to record and release a live version of this album was not planned in advance whatsoever, and the terrible mixing is the singular reason why. The mixing on this release is easily some of the worst I’ve ever heard on a live album. It genuinely sounds like somebody filmed the concert a few feet away from Max Bemis’ microphone stand, and that they used the raw, unedited audio for the album. Bemis’ God-awful vocal performance is at the forefront of the terrible production, and the rest of the band at times is barely audible. Based on the piss-poor production quality, and the fact that there was seemingly no announcement ahead of time that this particular concert in Silver Spring, Maryland was going to be recorded, this release can’t help but feel like an obvious cash-grab.
Speaking of Bemis’ vocal performance, the entire affair, top-to-bottom, is an unmitigated disaster. It’s almost impressive how he manages to sound both like he’s trying too hard and that he’s barely trying at the same time. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that there is not a single moment during this album’s 75+ minute runtime where Bemis’ vocals are on time or on key. It constantly sounds like he’s out of breath and barely managing to keep up with the rest of the band’s pace, such as on
Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat. It wouldn’t come as a shock to me at all if it was one day revealed that Bemis was reading the lyrics to these songs off a teleprompter, as his delivery consistently feels strained and inorganic, as if he spent minimal (or no) time rehearsing the songs. Worst, or most annoyingly, of all is the fact that Bemis cannot for the life of him stay a consistent distance from the microphone; the volume of his singing ranges from barely audible to distractingly noisy, oftentimes in a matter of seconds.
Disregarding for a moment the songs that he actually
does sing, let’s briefly discuss his crippling habit of extending the microphone out to the crowd and letting them do the singing instead, such as the entire opening of
Every Man Has A Molly. Crowd sing-alongs are perfectly fine in moderation during an actual in-person concert, but there’s no meaningful reason for so many sing-along moments to be featured on a live album. In moderation, these moments can be welcome as a way to get the audience more involved, particularly for slower, more emotional songs. However, on this album, these moments reek of laziness and a lack of preparation. There are times where it seems as though Bemis is trying to be funny or tongue-in-cheek during these interactions, such as when he introduces
Alive With the Glory of Love (this song’s called “the de-de-de-de-du”). However, if he’s really joking, the jokes aren’t landing. Another example of an awkward and unfunny crowd interaction is after
Woe, leading up to the introduction of
The Writhing South. I’ll let the full, unedited quote speak for itself:
”There’s sort-of a scent of burnt hair…is there any Bigfoot’s dick in the audience?...But instead we’re not going to focus on that, we’re going to play the emo music.”
While we’re on the topic of awkward crowd interactions, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Cody Linder’s speech at the end of
Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat. A bit of context for the uninitiated: Say Anything (really, Max Bemis specifically) has developed a reputation for not following through on obligations made to their fans. Cancelled/postponed shows and tours, cancelled meet-and-greets, as well as Bemis’ low-effort song shop sales have all contributed to this reputation. Worst of all is the fact that Bemis does not, under any circumstances, appear to hold himself accountable for these shortcomings (which has been made obvious over time due to him frequently disabling social media comments on posts regarding cancelled/postponed events). With all this in mind, I find it very odd that they left in Linder’s emotional speech at the end of
Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat, in which he discusses the band’s upcoming (at the time) tour of the U.K. Here’s the thing: their U.K. tour was postponed and subsequently cancelled by March of 2025 - a whole four months before the release of this live album. It’s very shocking that, given Bemis’ long history of dodging responsibility for his flakiness, he wouldn’t personally see to it that Linder’s speech would be edited out of the album prior to its release. God forbid your own fans be reminded of what was once promised to them.
It would be somewhat unfair if I went this entire review without mentioning the rest of the band other than Bemis, but there’s so little to talk about. Not only are they barely audible most of the time, but their performances are so bland and cookie-cutter that they don’t do anything to elevate any of the songs as a whole. At the very least, they play their parts on time and correctly, but never do anything above and beyond. Even the backing vocals, which are admittedly still much better than Bemis’, are often mistimed and awkward.
Say Anything…Is A Real Boy (Live Version) isn’t just a failure of a live album, it’s a complete embarrassment of a concert that should’ve never been recorded to begin with. An insulting lack of effort went into the preparation and production of this recording, and it grows more and more obvious to the listener with each song. To give credit where it’s due, the original
...Is A Real Boy is a modern classic that Bemis and the rest of the band have every right to be proud of. But with releases like this, it seems like they’re doing everything in their ability to tarnish the reputation of what’s widely considered their finest work. At the start of this review, I asked two questions: What makes a concert great? What makes a concert album great? It should come as absolutely no surprise that not a single possible answer to either of those questions can be found on
Say Anything…Is A Real Boy (Live Version). Concert albums, when done right, make listeners wish more than anything else that they could’ve seen the show in person. After making it through this 75-minute slog, not only am I going to be sharing with my family on Thanksgiving how grateful I am to have missed this show, but I’ve also lost any and all interest in seeing Say Anything in concert.
Fans, and concert-enjoyers in general, deserve much better than this low-effort trash.
0.5 out of 5
