Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings

I’ve been to a few Cloud Nothings shows this year, and they all had something in common — the band basically only played songs from their new album Here And Nowhere Else. Which is fine, it’s a good album, but those songs have a tendency to blur together when they don’t have some older material breaking it up. So, they were as solid as ever, but with the luxury of a slightly longer set than either of those I saw at SXSW in March, they were also able to mix it up a bit more. This meant “Fall In” and “Stay Useless” appeared, but it also meant that I finally got to hear “Wasted Days” again, which I still think is far and away the best song Dylan Baldi has written. It seemed like they were going to close with that, and then they did an extra-slow-burn version of “No Future/No Past,” inverting the opening one-two of Attack On Memory for an incredibly strong one-two closing to their set. If I have one qualm with Here And Nowhere Else, it’s that it doesn’t have that same dynamic quality that Attack On Memory displayed with those songs. With these songs back in the fold, Cloud Nothings’ Bonnaroo performance was the most balanced and varied set I’ve seen them do this year, which also means it was the best.