Starting Off Right; What Else Did We Need?The Starting Line Opens and Commands Attention in Milwaukee (12/18/07)

As a front man, lead singer/bassist Kenny Vasoli commands attention like Vince Scheuerman from Army of Me—hand gestures, energy, heart-on-sleeve emotion—except that Vasoli can also throw in the occasional screamo chorus. While there’s a hard edge that jumps out at times, the Starting Line is a pop band cloaked in the cattails of Jimmy Eat World.

Opening FM 102.1’s Big Snow Show at the Riverside in Milwaukee (December 16, 2008), and simultaneously closing out a long tour, the Starting Line are well-beyond a good start. They’re the opener that captured most of my attention that evening.

TSL has a Britpop sound meeting the Police with some hard-working guitars (although the sound that night was much too muddy, needing more distinct guitar lines to make the songs really come alive). They dedicated “Birds” to Jimmy Eat World—a song where the headliners’ influence showed up the most.

Elsewhere, though, TSL takes an Emo sound and cranks up a rhythm appeal to dance. It’s built on the bass more than the drums, and shows up in the straight-forward bounce/pogo songs like “Best of Me” and in the ready-to-be-dance-remixed “Are You Alone?”

The set’s high point came on “Floating Away” when drum tech Matt added a tribal drum tom that skyrocketed the musical emotion.

The Starting Line
Virgin Records