Crammed into the small space in front of the Metro's stage were about 150 people, and half of them seemed to know every word to Dashboard Confessional's songs. Even though a few were evidently itinerant Americans - tanking up on Grolsch and shouting esoteric slogans comprehensible only to those born under the stars and stripes - it was a bizarre experience for a band that is hardly a household name.
At the front of the stage, controlling the proceedings with the brash self-confidence of the born exhibitionist, was Chris Carrabba, who has invented the band as a kind of mobile therapy unit for himself. "Dashboard is sort of my diary," he told one interviewer. "I don't really keep a journal or write a diary, but I find myself writing these songs - it's just kind of my way to cope with this world, I guess."
Small, dark and wiry, his head adorned by a carefully-styled quiff that resembled one of those ramps the navy use to launch Sea Harriers from, Carrabba runs the gamut from tormented acoustic tunesmith to grandiose nu-rock frontman. His acoustic persona is surprisingly convincing, since he has a light and plaintive voice, and is able to offset lyrics of almost Proustian length with better-than-average guitar playing in which mere strumming gives way to passages of elegant fretmanship.
The crowd needed little encouragement to pile in on the choruses (indeed, Carrabba sometimes stood back and let them sing entire verses) and the likes of The Good Fight almost had the air of a candlelight vigil: "I begged you not to go, I begged you, I pleaded, claimed you as my only hope."
It wasn't long ago that Carrabba converted to Christianity, which may help to explain the faintly evangelical aura hovering over his performance. He also has good taste, since he urged his listeners to go and track down some albums by the late Townes van Zandt, though sadly this was greeted with cries of: "Boring!"
In some of the full-band songs (just add guitar, bass and drums and you have the complete Confessional experience) you could catch glimpses of Neil Young or Giant Sand, alongside less persuasive glimpses of theme-from-Friends style rent-a-pop, like Out of Touch, Out of Time. But for the cold, dead middle of January, not bad at all.
