Lit  w/ The Color Red

Friday August 9, 2002 –House of Blues – Anaheim, Ca. 
by Keavin Wiggins

The set list was divided about equally between songs on Lit’s two RCA albums. All the songs went over well but a few sent the crown into a deeper frenzy like when A.J. asked the crowd to help them sing the chorus to their hit single “Miserable”.  The oldest song in the set was “No Big Thing”, a song that was on Lit’s indie debut but was also included on “A Place in the Sun”. Needless to say, the old time fans ate it up. 

Although Lit does a great job in the studio, they are really at their best live and the put a lot into their shows that you just can’t put on a CD. For example, about three quarters of the way through their set the house lights went down and then a dark figure appeared on stage carrying a torch of some kind, a few second pass and Kevin did his best Gene Simmons impression by breathing fire for the audience, then Jeremy took the stage for a full on metal guitar solo. We know Jeremy is a metal head at heart and he proved that with his solo. Jeremy wowed the crowd with his six-string talent and then after hitting a pinnacle was joined on the stage by the rest of the band and they broke into a flawless rendition of “Lipstick And Bruises”. Then they took things down a notch and broke out the acoustic guitars for a little unplugged action. After that, A.J. broke into some banter with the audience and said “the best looking chicks are at Lit shows! And no one is hotter than two women in the audience tonight, my grandma and my mom!” He pointed them out to the crowd who in turn roared their hello, and then they broke into “Over My Head”, a song that is about 10 times more intense live as it is on CD. Then the stagelights went down again and the band left the stage. The crowd started  chanting “Lit! Lit! Lit!” and within a few minutes they returned for an encore. Showing his sense of humor Kevin had stripped out of his shirt and was wearing a black bra, Jeremy was downing a can of Miller Lite and then the band broke into a new song that has yet to be released before they launched into a favorite from “Atomic”, “The Last Time Again”. During the normal bridge they changed things up by playing the first verse to the Cars classic “Just What I Needed”, then A.J. jumped into the pit in front of the stage to get a little closer to the screaming fans.  It’s hard to imagine them topping that, but then A.J. announced that they were being joined by the entire “Dirty Martini” family for the last song of the night. Members of Handsome Devil and The Color Red took the stage and it looked a little like Orange County’s version of Farm Aid or Ringo Starr’s All-Star Jams, with all of these musicians taking the stage and rocking out to the Lit classic “My Own Worst Enemy”. A.J. sang the first chorus and verse and then turned the microphone over to Jon from The Color Red to sing the second verse. It was a perfect ending to a near perfect show. Say what ever you want about these band but no one can ever accuse them of not rockin’ their audiences live. 

  I was hoping they would break out some tunes from their indie debut “Tripping the Light Fantastic” since they were playing before their hometown crowd filled with people who used to rock along to those tunes but the band decided to keep the music limited to songs from their two major label albums. Nevertheless, they rocked hard enough with their newer songs that I wasn’t disappointed when the show was over. Lit had given us a near perfect rock show. You really can’t walk away from a show like this disappointed. The Color Red and Lit saw the challenge of rocking their hometown audience and marched in full force and accomplished the task and then some!  If you have the opportunity to see either of these band’s live, take it! It’s worth every penny. It’s with a bit of pride that Orange County fans can smile at the success of their local boys who made good because we knew all along that they have what it takes and it was great to see them bring the music home once again.