Read Yellow Breaks Up

I haven’t posted anything about a band breaking up in awhile, but when I read that Read Yellow is breaking up, I felt I should share a story about them.

I saw Dillinger Escape Plan on tour in 2004 with The End, Read Yellow, and Trivium was the opener (this was just after Trivium had released “Ascendency”, and was before they got big). The only band on the bill I wasn’t familiar with was Read Yellow.

When Read Yellow started playing, the vocalist/guitarist began screaming and getting right into the audience. During the show, the other guitarist gave his guitar to the audience, and the audience began playing it and making noise on it. They also gave a microphone to the audience, along with a drumstick and a cymbal, to which the audience began making noise with that as well. Near the end of the show, the vocalist/guitarist began throwing his guitar around, and attempting to play it behind his head. Eventually he began jumping around the stage so much that he jumped into the drum kit. The drum kit fell apart, but the drummer attempted to play what was left standing.

I had never been to a live show with that much audience interaction, or that many crazy things happening on stage. I left that show saying “I don’t know if those guy in Read Yellow know how to play, but that was the best live show I’ve seen in my life!”. I’ve been to some great live shows (Suffocation is always fun to see), but nothing quite ever topped that.

It’s a little sad that the only thing I’ve heard about them since is that they’re breaking up. You can read about it at their MySpace page here.

Read Yellow
Read Yellow At MySpace
Fenway Recordings